Throughout its history, the company has faced a wide range of criticisms. Some have accused the early Fordist model of production of being exploitative, and Ford has been criticized as being willing to collaborate with dictatorships or hire mobs to intimidate union leaders and increase their profits through unethical means.
Ford refused to allow collective bargaining until 1941, with the Ford Service Department being set up as an internal security, intimidation, and espionage unit within the company, and quickly gained a reputation of using violence against union organizers and sympathizers.[78][79]
Ford was also criticized for tread separation and tire disintegration of many Firestone tires installed on Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Mazda Navajos, which caused many crashes during the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is estimated that over 250 deaths and more than 3,000 serious injuries resulted from these failures. Although Firestone received most of the blame, some blame fell on Ford, which advised customers to under-inflate the tires in order to reduce the risk of vehicle rollovers.
Alleged Nazi collaboration
Other accusations were that the company collaborated with the German Nazi regime and relied on Germany. The German Ford company used slave labor in Cologne between 1941 and 1945 and it had produced military vehicles such as jeeps, planes, and ships used by a fascist regime. Many of these allegations were made in a series of United States lawsuits in 1998. The lawsuit was dismissed in 1999 because the judge concluded "the issues...concerned international treaties between nations and foreign policy and were thus in the realm of the executive branch."[80][81]
Detractors point to Henry Ford's outspoken anti-semitism, including his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, which published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They also point to the fact that in 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime's highest honor for foreigners before the outbreak of the war.[82]
Defenders of the company argue that the Ford German division, Fordwerke, had been taken over by the Nazi government after it rose to power, claiming that it was not under the company's control, though Henry Ford, according to court records, did stay in touch with the company. Although Ford's initial motivations were anti-war, the company was heavily involved in the United States Allied war effort after the outbreak of war.[81]
Argentine "Dirty War"
Ford's Argentine subsidiary was accused of collaborating with the Argentine 1976-1983 military dictatorship, actively helping in the political repression of intellectuals and dissidents that was pursued by said government. No result was proven and the company denied the allegations.
In a lawsuit initiated in 1996 by relatives of some of the estimated 600 Spanish citizens who disappeared in Argentina during the "Dirty War", evidence was presented to support the allegation that much of this repression was directed by Ford and the other major industrial firms. According to a 5,000-page report, Ford executives drew up lists of "subversive" workers and handed them over to the military task-forces which were allowed to operate within the factories. These groups allegedly kidnapped, tortured and murdered workers—at times allegedly within the plants themselves. The company denied the allegations.
In a second trial, a report brought by the CTA, and the testimonies of former Ford workers themselves, claimed that the company's Argentine factory was used between 1976 and 1978 as a detention center, and that management allowed the military to set up its own bunker inside the plant. The company denied the allegations.[83][84][85]
Ford Pinto
In September 1971 the Ford Motor Company launched the Pinto for the North American market. Through early production of this model it emerged that design flaws could result in fuel tank explosions when the vehicle was subject to a rear-end collision. Some sources even allege this safety data was available to Ford prior to production, but was ignored for economic reasons.[86] Either way, a major scandal followed with the leaking to San Francisco magazine Mother Jones of the notorious "Ford Pinto Memo", an internal Ford cost-benefit analysis showing that the cost of implementing design changes to the subcompact's fuel system was greater than the economic cost of the burn injuries and deaths that could be prevented by doing so. Subsequently some have played down[87] the importance of this case as Pinto explosion fatality estimates range widely from 27 to 900,[86] with the lowest figures being allegedly in line with comparable fatality statistics for other car models. Nevertheless, the affair is an infamous example of a big corporation putting profit before human life because one senior Ford executive, at the time of the memo, is alleged to have written of his Pinto customers: it's "cheaper to let them burn".[88]
In the related Ford Pinto product liability case Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 119 Cal. App. 3d 757 (4th Dist. 1981) the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District reviewed Ford's conduct and upheld compensatory damages of $2.5 million and punitive damages of $3.5 million against Ford. Of the two plaintiffs, one was killed in the collision that caused her Pinto to explode, and her passenger, 13-year old Richard Grimshaw, was badly burned and scarred for life.
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