Grits with Sushi

Japanese tires in Tennessee

Most American workers consider competition from Japanese imports at east partly responsible for pushing U.S. industry into its worst downturn since the Great Depression. But last week a group of grateful blue-collar workers in LaVergne, Tenn., a tiny factory town outside Nashville, welcomed the Japanese as saviors. Bridgestone Tire Co. of Japan bought LaVergne's truck-tire plant from Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. for $52 million. In a ceremony to mark the occasion, Satoshi Kishimoto, a Bridgestone executive who will be the plant's general manager, greeted 200 of his new employees with a cheery "Hi, you all." After he helped plant four tulip poplars, Tennessee's state tree, to commemorate a new "era of unity," the workers erupted into a rousing ovation.

They had reason to cheer. The number of union production workers employed by Firestone at the factory had dwindled from a peak of 850 in early 1980 to 260. Bridgestone intends to keep on all current employees and recall 170 laid-off workers, probably by next week. The company will invest $35 million over the next five years to retool the factory with efficient new equipment and perhaps quadruple the current tire output.

Bridgestone's foray into U.S. production is an important milestone for a fast-rising firm that has long pursued global prominence. It was founded in 1931 by Shojiro Ishibashi, who, to help ensure international recognition, christened the company with an inverted English translation of his own name: ishi means stone, and bashi means bridge. After half a century of phenomenal growth, Bridgestone (1981 sales: $3.3 billion) exports 50% of its production and is the world's fourth largest tire manufacturer, behind Goodyear, Michelin and Firestone.

While Bridgestone builds a large share of the tires on Japanese cars and trucks bound for the U.S., it has only a small fraction of the American replacement-tire market. With protectionist sentiment against imports on the rise, Bridgestone Chairman Kanichiro Ishibashi, son of the founder, decided that the surest way to boost American sales was to produce tires in the U.S. Initially, Bridgestone officials talked of building a new plant, but Firestone Chairman John Nevin, who has been streamlining his firm, persuaded the Japanese company last February to buy the tire factory at LaVergne.

Agreement still had to be reached, however, between Bridgestone and the plant's union, United Rubber Workers Local 1055. The workers were leery at first because of the reputation Japanese companies have for opposing unions. The Japanese were bewildered by the American system of assigning workers the best jobs and working hours strictly by seniority. Says Kazuo Ishikure, Bridgestone's U.S. manufacturing president: "Seniority is the backbone of the U.S. labor contract. But in Japan, the executives can move workers between shifts or between jobs and departments quite freely."

By August, Bridgestone and the union's leaders reached an impasse. At one session, Local 1055 President Tommy Powell got abusive, brought up Pearl Harbor and told the Japanese to get out. They did. Powell, accustomed to American negotiations in which heated exchanges merely result in both sides going out for coffee and coming back for another round, was soon shocked to learn that the Bridgestone executives had flown back to Japan. A week later, after Firestone threatened to shut down the LaVergne plant, Powell wrote an apologetic letter to Bridgestone asking the company to come back. Finally, in September, the two sides struck a deal. Bridgestone agreed to a continuation of essentially the same wage levels and seniority system called for in the union's contract with Firestone. The workers were willing to accept greater automation at the plant.

Bridgestone hopes that its new employees can become more creative on the factory floor. Says Norihiro Takeuchi, Bridgestone's U.S. corporate secretary: "American workers are used to doing what they are told by their superiors. That's it; that's their job. We expect production people to think about how they can improve what they do. We want to tap their talents; we encourage them to utilize their dormant brains." When Takeuchi suggested to Powell that he use his brain to come up with ways to enhance the working environment at LaVergne, the union leader broke into a broad good-ole-boy grin. And never mentioned Pearl Harbor again. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.