Date of publication: January 20, 2008
Source: Los Angeles Times
Author: Dave Zirin
A Super Bowl sponsor isn't playing fair with rubber workers in Liberia.
The Super Bowl is perhaps the last cultural event that unites a majority of Americans. Whether the game is a thriller or a snooze, Super Bowl Sunday is a day to gather with friends, rate the commercials, assess the halftime show and wear pants with elastic waistlines.
On Feb. 3, though, pay close attention to the halftime show. Tom Petty is performing, which means that any wardrobe malfunction could lead to the fall of Western civilization.
The show also stands to be a commercial bonanza for its sponsor, Bridgestone/Firestone. The Fortune 500 company has been crowned the "Official Tire Sponsor" of Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLIII. As John Gamauf, an executive with the company, said, the sponsorship "is an unprecedented opportunity to showcase the Bridgestone brand to the world."
Peter Murray, the National Football League's senior vice president of partnership marketing and sales, chimed in: "By teaming with a global leader like Bridgestone, we can make America's favorite event even more powerful."
But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might want to be more careful about who the league cozies up to, especially when the partner is known in some parts of the globe not for high-velocity tires but for highly exploitative labor practices.
The rubber business has historically been horrific for African workers, known as tappers, who collect sap from rubber trees on plantations south of the Sahara. The labor practices of the Firestone Natural Rubber Co., a subsidiary of Bridgestone/Firestone, in Liberia seem in keeping with this history.
For 81 years, the company has operated a plantation in Harbel, a company town in the truest sense. Its very name comes from founder Harvey Firestone and his wife, Idabelle. The town received its name after Firestone signed a 99-year lease with the Liberian government in 1926 that gave his company access to 1 million acres of land on which rubber trees grow. The sap -- known as latex -- collected on the plantation is shipped to the Bridgestone/Firestone plant in Nashville, where it is used to make tires, among other goods
According to a 2005 lawsuit filed by the International Labor Rights Fund, a Washington-based advocacy organization, Bridgestone/Firestone allegedly overworks, underpays and exposes its 4,000 Liberian employees to hazardous chemicals and pesticides. Its subsidiary also oversees what has been called de facto slavery.
Dan Adomitis, president of Firestone Natural Rubber Co., said that "each tapper will [draw sap from] about 650 trees a day, where they spend perhaps a couple of minutes at each tree."
That translates into a 21-hour day. If employees don't make that quota, their daily wage of $3.19 is cut in half. To avoid this, workers call on their wives and children to help them hit the number -- and they go unpaid.
In addition to the lawsuit, which is pending in Indiana, Bridgestone/Firestone has drawn fire from other quarters. The Liberian Environmental Protection Agency has cited the company's subsidiary for dumping toxic waste in Harbel's Farmington River, and in early 2007, the corporate parent won the "Public Eye Global Award" for irresponsible corporate behavior because of its record on child labor and the environment. The "award" ceremony is held concurrently with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Bridgestone/Firestone says that the plantation jobs pay well by Liberian standardsand that they come with an array of essential social services.
Liberian workers may disagree, but in a country with 80% unemployment, they can't just walk off the plantation and find another job. "In our country, you are young, then you get married, then you have children and then you die," Junior Tokpah, a tapper, was quoted as saying in a McClatchy News Service story published at the end of 2006. "There are no other prospects. That's why I can't complain about this work too much."
In July, the Firestone workers on the plantation took a different tack to protest their working conditions: They held an election and voted out the leaders of the longtime company-controlled union.
But the ousted company-appointed officials challenged the results in court, and Firestone refused to bargain with the new elected union leadership. In December, workers walked off their jobs, demanding that the company recognize their union.
Then later that month, the Liberian Supreme Court ruled that the July elections were legitimate and that Firestone would have to negotiate with the union. Austin Nantee, the newly elected president of the Firestone Agriculture Workers' Union of Liberia, said workers "are looking forward to carving out a new collective bargaining agreement with the company."
But Firestone has not definitively accepted the election outcome and still has not negotiated in good faith with the newly elected union leadership.
So the question remains: Should the NFL be offering an international platform to a company accused of using child labor and refusing to bargain with a union whose leadership was democratically elected?
Goodell has been quick to levy tough suspensions and stiff fines on players who run up against the law off the playing field. He should be as vigilant in picking sponsors for his league's marquee game.
Dave Zirin is the author of "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports."
Resolution adopted by Berkeley Peace & Justice Commission, which will be voted on by Berkeley City Council on January 29, 2008:
Expressing Solidarity with Firestone Corporation Rubber Workers in Liberia
WHEREAS, Berkeley Municipal Code (BMC) Chapter 369.070, establishing the Peace and Justice Commission, states that the Commission shall (A) Advise the Berkeley City Council on all matters relating to the City of Berkeley's role in issues of peace and social justice, including support for human rights and self-determination throughout the world, (and) (C) Help develop proposals for the City Council for actions in furtherance of the goals of peace and justice; and
WHEREAS, Firestone Corporation has operated in Liberia since 1926 and has exploited workers and the environment throughout its history, currently paying its workers $3.19 a day in base pay for a production quota that a Firestone official acknowledged in an interview with CNN in 2005 could take up to 21 hours of work per day to meet; thereby forcing the workers to employ family members, including young children, to assist them, which has led to a lawsuit against Firestone filed in 2005 by the International Labor Rights Fund (Class Action Complaint for Injunctive Relief & Damages) in the United States; and
WHEREAS, the Bridgestone/Firestone Corporation sells automobile tires in the city of Berkeley, deriving great profit due to the near slave-labor wages and exploitative conditions under which Liberian workers toil, and the City of Berkeley procures automobiles and trucks equipped with Bridgestone/Firestone tires, with proceeds flowing directly or indirectly to that corporation; and Berkeley residents, having a strong sense of social justice, do not wish their city to be a profit center for Bridgestone/Firestone; and
WHEREAS, Firestone rubber tappers in Liberia, all live inside a 240 square mile plantation and are dependent on the company for housing, schools and medical facilities all of which are inadequate; they have little access to safety equipment and limited access to medical facilities; their backbreaking work leads to numerous injuries and deformities the longer a tapper is employed, resulting in the release of a report by the United Nations Mission in Liberia in 2006 in which it was stated that "occupational safety and health standards are not observed at the Firestone plantation" (United Nations Mission in Liberia "Human Rights in Liberia's Rubber Plantations: Tapping into the Future" Report of the Commission for Africa, May, 2006), and to Firestone being given the Public Eye award for "irresponsible corporate behavior" and "conditions approaching slavery" at a ceremony at the World Social Forum in Switzerland; and
WHEREAS, the community outside the plantation has also charged Firestone with dumping chemical waste into the Farmington River, contaminating a waterway used for fishing, bathing and drinking water, and a French laboratory recently tested water samples and found high concentrations of ammonium, nitrate and other harmful chemicals; and
WHEREAS, fed up with the abusive conditions and the lack of union democracy, workers have staged two work stoppages demanding the formation of a union to represent them, elections for which took place on June 30, 2007, but there are ominous signs indicating that management and its allies are trying to place as many obstacles as possible in the way of independent union leaders.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Peace & Justice Commission recommends that the Council of the City of Berkeley join the International Labor Rights Forum, Friends of the Earth, NAACP, TransAfrica Forum, The RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights and other United States and Liberian based organizations in demanding that Bridgestone/Firestone:
(1) Take responsibility for this situation and follow the law;
(2) Improve the assignment of achievable quotas for the average worker to negate the use of child laborers;
(3) Increase wages to raise the standard of living of plantation workers;
(4) Supply modern tools to protect workers on the job from coming into contact with harmful chemicals;
(5) Redress all environmental damages as a result of its Liberian operations;
(6) Stop releasing chemicals into the environment and stop exposing workers to any compounds and chemicals that are internationally recognized as most toxic; and
(7) Fully disclose all key project payments, contracts, and concession agreements for all Firestone projects in Liberia.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of this Resolution be sent to the International Labor Rights Fund, International Labor Rights Forum, United Steel Workers (who will convey the information to the Liberian Rubber Workers), and Dan Adomitis, President, Firestone Natural Rubber.