The Solidarity Center, in partnership with the United Steelworkers International (USW), stands in support of all workers on the Firestone Liberia‘s plantation in Harbel whose low-paid and precarious labor brings raw latex from the plantation to tire manufacturing plants in North America and Europe.
“Now, more than ever, working people have to stick together and work together to win the changes we need,” says USW Vice President Kevin Mapp, who this week attended a series of union workshops at a critical juncture for Firestone Liberia’s contract workers.
The company’s contract workers–who work for lower wages with fewer social protections and benefits as compared to Firestone Liberia’s directly hired, unionized, workers–are poised to negotiate with their employers for a fairer deal. Although more than 90 percent of Firestone-Liberia’s contract workers voted almost nine months ago for union representation, their new union, the Sub-Contractor Workers Union of Firestone (SCWUOF), has yet to achieve its first agreements.
While Firestone Liberia has long profited from the grueling labor of rubber workers, the increasing use of lower-paid contract workers—often denied the rights, protections, and dignity afforded to unionized staff—raises serious concerns under international labor standards and mirrors global patterns of exploitation that have drawn forced labor allegations. This system effectively creates a second tier of workers whose vulnerability is built into the business model, echoing the very abuses international law is meant to prevent.
Safe jobs, healthy communities, fair wages, the ability to care for one’s family and a chance to retire with dignity are the dreams and aspirations of all working people in Liberia and around the world, says the USW.
Firestone Liberia’s contract workers’ efforts to negotiate a fair contract are fully supported by Firestone Liberia’s long-standing union for direct-hire workers: The Firestone Agricultural Workers’ Union of Liberia (FAWUL) has long argued against unfair competition with exploited contract workers, whose numbers are steadily increasing over time.
“We owe it to generation after generation of workers who have suffered to secure good jobs and dignity for ALL,” said FAWUL Chairperson Rodennick Bongorlee immediately after contract workers won their hard-fought election campaign for union representation last year.
Through a “buddy system” of mentoring and regular skills-training workshops, USW’s solidarity campaign is helping experienced FAWUL leaders transfer their collective bargaining and other union-building skills to SCWUOF.
“I’m so proud of the partnership among USW, FAWUL and the new Firestone contractors union in Liberia. We are indeed stronger together,” says Mapp.
By FAWUL’s calculations, some 3,500 full-time jobs were lost from 2019 through 2024 to Firestone-imposed transfers to contract positions, lay-offs and forced retirements. FAWUL in 2007 was awarded the AFL-CIO’s annual George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award in recognition of the union’s “extraordinary courage” in successfully organizing more than 4,000 Firestone Liberia workers for the first time in the company’s 82-year existence in the country. Firestone Liberia is a direct subsidiary of Firestone Natural Rubber Company and an indirect subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas – part of the Bridgestone Group.
The Solidarity Center, in partnership with USW International, works with Liberian unions in key extractive industries such as mining and rubber to support them as they better serve their members and assist workers in forming unions.