By G. Dunkel
When U.S. rubber unions took up collections for sick fellow workers or the recent Katrina disaster, no one harassed them. But when they tried to show support for fellow rubber workers who struck Firestone Natural Rubber in Liberia, the transnational corporation on Feb. 22 blocked this display of international working-class solidarity.
The Liberian workers had good reason for their strike. Dan Adomitis, president of Firestone Natural Rubber, told CNN in November 2005 that it was reasonable for him to expect one of "his" workers on Firestone's million-acre rubber plantation in Liberia to tap 650 trees a day. It only takes 2 to 3 minutes a tree, Adomitis said, expecting nobody to do the calculation.
Tapping 650 trees at 2 minutes a tree means that the Firestone worker has to do 1,300 minutes of work a day, that is, over 21 hours. That's the minimum time. For this, the worker gets paid $3.19 for the entire day. Only if both spouse and children help can the worker make the quota.
Liberia has suffered from 14 years of war, so jobs are extremely scarce and hundreds of thousands of people have not held regular paying jobs for years. Families were willing to take the jobs Firestone offers, even if they have to do unpaid labor.
But Liberian workers learned that Firestone was using toxic chemicals on the trees, which caused them and their children and spouses to get sick. Then Fire stone started deducting one-third of their daily pay for unspecified reasons. The workers struck in November 2005 and testified for a NGO that started a suit against Fire stone. They also raised issues like unsafe working conditions, unsanitary, company -provided housing and discrimination.
Any strike is tough but in a country where having a job is unusual, workers strike only as a last resort.
Eight Steelworker locals that represent workers at Bridgestone-Firestone plants in the United States sent a fact-finding tour to Liberia. After the tour, the U.S. locals decided to take up plant-gate collections to help the workers on strike in Liberia.
"We've stood for years at the same locations collecting for members who are ill or other locals on strike. Most recently, we collected to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina," Lewis Beck, president of United Steelworkers Local 1055, said in a press release on the USW web site. Local 1055 represents the workers at a BF plant in LaVergne, Tenn.
But this time, Beck and his coworkers were collecting to support rubber workers who toil on Bridgestone-Firestone's giant rubber plantation in Liberia. Local 1055 was the first of eight USW-represented locals scheduled to participate in the gate collections.
On Feb. 22, the company stopped workers at the plant gate from collecting donations to help the struggling rubber workers in Liberia.
"Situations like this remind me why our contract negotiations are so difficult. I think the company sometimes forgets that its workers are people trying to take good care of their families," Beck said. He and other members of the local were planning to meet with lawyers to discuss the possibility of filing legal charges.