Bridgestone history

By 1991, Bridgestone's acquisition of Firestone generally was being called a huge blunder.

1994: A long and bitter strike begins at five Bridgestone/Firestone plants in the United States.

In January 1995 Bridgestone hired more than 2,000 permanent "replacement workers" (scabs), bringing criticism from both Labor Secretary Robert Reich and President Bill Clinton and much negative publicity for Bridgestone/Firestone.

Indeed, tire sales had increased nearly 19 percent in 1996, a year in which Bridgestone earned a record ¥70.34 billion ($645.28 million) on a record ¥1.96 trillion ($17.96 billion) in sales.

Despite slumping sales of automobiles in Japan and other Asian nations because of the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98, Bridgestone closed out the decade strongly.

The company was also in the midst of building new tire plants in central Europe and China and a plant in India scheduled to open in 1998 through a joint venture with Tata Industries.

The criticism of Kaizaki came to a head in March 1999.

Most notably, the company's plant in Decatur, Illinois, where many of the recalled tires had been made, was shut down at the end of 2001, costing about 1,500 workers their jobs.

In March 2003 Bridgestone bolstered its European operations by purchasing an 18.9 percent interest in Finnish tire manufacturer Nokian Tyres PLC for ¥78.3 million.