Where is the voice? Watch these globalized tires

For years the debate about the ill consequences of globalization focused on lost jobs and the race to the bottom, in which American workers are expected to compete with workers whose employers work them long hours, pay little, and provide them no benefits. Now the issue is: whether the products that flood Americans markets from overseas are not outright dangerous? How do you like poison in your tooth paste? Lead in your kids’ toys? And tires that lack basic safety features? And—US companies that sell them as if they were reliable ones, and "forget" to inform authorities, when they are clearly unsafe at any speed?

Recently it has come to light that a tire importer, appropriate called Foreign Tire Sales (FTS), knew about a major safety malfunction in their tires for almost two years before doing anything about it.  For years FTS imported hundreds of thousands of tires from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. of Hangzhou, China.  In October of 2005, FTS became concerned by a notable increase in warranty claims. It questioned its Chinese supplier and soon commissioned their own testing.  FTS found that many tires were sold lacked the safety feature known as a gum strip which helps bind the belts of a tire to each other.  Others had a gum strip but that was only half of the needed width.However only in May, following a law suit by the families of two men killed in a van crash, that the company took action-- by filing a lawsuit of the against the Chinese supplier.
This is hardly an isolated incidence. I will several other such examples over the coming months. The question for me is not why companies are greedy but why our elected representatives, and those who aspire to take over their positions, do not raise these safety issues. Where is the voice?

Comments

[Polina]

Interestingly, globalization is also forcing China to start taking responsibility for the quality of their products. To compete in the global market China is realizing that it needs to show that its products are safe and dependable - otherwise it loses business. That's why it executed its former head of the Drug Administration for taking bribes and approving medicines without review. Market forces are forcing China to be accountable in a way that nothing else can.

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