Marketplace: News Archives

Monday, September 4, 2000
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It's Monday, the 4th of September. I'm David Brancaccio.

Embattled tire maker Bridgestone-Firestone has reached a tentative deal with union workers, ending the threat of a strike by 8,000 workers at nine plants in the U.S. The breakthrough came after a weekend of nearly non-stop negotiations at a St. Louis hotel. Details are not yet public, but both the United Steelworkers Union and Bridgestone are calling the deal fair. Harley Shaiken, a professor of Labor Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, sees two forces pushing for this resolution.

Shaiken: "The first is that the unions had considerable leverage given that a strike would have been devastating for Firestone, minimally in terms of publicity. But second, they were also very fearful of damaging the company further at this particularly critical time."

A time when its recalling 6.5 million tires linked to fatal blowouts around the world and just ahead of a congressional hearing on the tire safety issue this week. A strike at Firestone six years ago is often described as one of the most bitter American labor confrontations of the 1990's.

As millions of Americans traveling on this long labor day weekend were coming to terms with high gasoline prices, protests over soaring fuel costs were causing a crisis in France. Truck drivers and farmers blockaded oil refineries and storage sites nationwide. From our European Desk, Steven Beard has details.

Beard: "More than 50 oil storage sites and a dozen refineries across France were cut off. In some cities gas stations ran dry because of panic buying. The truckers and farmers staging the blockade want the government to reduce the tax on diesel. They claim the recent hike in crude oil prices makes their heavily taxed fuel among the most expensive in Europe. Last week French fishermen mounted a similar protest. They blockaded Channel ports, causing chaos for holiday-makers and costing transport companies a fortune. The French government caved in to the fishermen's demands and that has encouraged the truckers and the farmers to believe that they can extract the same concessions. At the European Desk in London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace."

Tomorrow, the United Nations welcomes its newest member, thanks in large part to the Internet economy. Marketplace's Steven Henn explains.

Henn: "It all started four years ago when a Canadian entrepreneur, Jason Chapnick, was brainstorming about the Internet, trying to come up with a new domain to rival the com in dot-com."

Kerner: "He was actually going through the alphabet going 'A', 'B', 'C' until he got to 'TV' and he realized that that would be the best top level domain that would ever be created."

Henn: "The only problem, according to Lou Kerner, dot TV's CEO, was the name was already assigned to Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the south pacific. With 10,000 people and almost no natural resources, Tuvalu found itself sitting on a gold mine. Last year the country cashed in and sold it's Internet initials for a $50 million and a 20 percent stake in dot TV. Tomorrow, Prime-Minister Yan-a-tona Yan-a-tona will raise his country's flag at the United Nations. After 22 years of independence Tuvalu can finally afford to pay it's dues. In Washington, I'm Stephen Henn for Marketplace."

Wall Street was all closed up for Labor Day, but they were not letting the computers cool in financial capitals elsewhere in the world. London's FTSE 100 index was up a scant three points today, the Nikkei index in Tokyo fell 0.5 percent and a burst of optimism about stable interest rates led the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong up 2.25 percent.