This Sunday, millions of sports fans around the world will watch this year’s National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl Halftime show sponsored by Bridgestone and featuring Bruce Springsteen. Meanwhile, the halftime show’s title sponsor will continue its long history of exploitation of workers and the environment in Liberia.
Since 1926, Bridgestone Firestone has operated the world’s largest rubber plantation in Harbel, Liberia. Workers on the plantation have long faced incredibly poor living and working conditions. Firestone rubber tappers live in crowded shacks without running water, electricity or indoor latrines and are required to meet an unreasonably high production quota in order to receive their meager pay.
After a long struggle, workers finally held the first free and fair union election and signed their first contract negotiated by a democratically elected and independent union leadership in August 2008. The agreement was a major step forward in the long struggle of workers to protect their rights. However, since the time the agreement was signed, Firestone management has failed to implement many of the important improvements in the new contract. For example, the new contract reduced the size of the production quota, but many workers throughout the plantation report that they are still being forced to produce at the old quota level which means they must hire subcontractors or use the labor of their family members in order to finish their work and be paid. Firestone has also not fully implemented health and safety improvements in the new contract and has not provided transportation for all of the children on the plantation to access schools as the contract says they should.
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http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/super-bowl-halftime-sponsor-bridgestone-firestone-continues-to-exploit-workers-in-liberia/#more-2045
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