In Liberia, unions are working to ensure worker rights are preserved and protected in the country’s rubber industry and beyond. Edwin Cisco, general secretary of the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), says his union is focused on three specific...
Liberia
In partnership with unions, the Solidarity Center conducts trainings on gender-based violence and harassment at work. Credit: Solidarity Center/Chris Johnson
The Solidarity Center, in partnership with the U.S.-based United Steelworkers (USW), works with Liberian unions in key extractive industries such as mining, timber and rubber, as well as with domestic workers, to enable them to better serve their members and assist workers in forming unions.
Through Solidarity Center and USW shop steward trainings, United Workers Union of Liberia (UWUL) and the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL) won groundbreaking agreements in mining and on the Firestone Natural Rubber Company plantation, respectively. FAWUL’s agreement with Firestone ended child labor and increased wages on the rubber plantation. The company agreed in a subsequent pact to build a school for workers’ children.
In partnership with unions, the Solidarity Center conducts trainings in preventing and eliminating gender-based violence and harassment at work. And, with support from the Solidarity Center and the USW, the Domestic Workers Union of Liberia (DOWUL) mobilizes and assists domestic workers, vulnerable to abuses working in private homes, in championing their rights.