Super Bowl blows it with Firestone

'Official Tire Sponsor' known as taskmaster in Liberia

Is the NFL on the Right Team?
A Super Bowl sponsor isn't playing fair with rubber workers in Liberia

by Dave Zirin
Special to the Los Angeles Times

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/21/6504/

~snips~


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...




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...

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