stop firestone

Last week, thousands of workers on Firestone’s rubber plantation in Liberia went on strike to protest the company’s efforts to interfere with new union elections scheduled for late May. On Friday, April 27, 2007, police forces were called in to quell the strikers. The police chased workers, fired tear gas indiscriminately into crowded family settlements, arrested 13 workers and beat workers with batons, leaving six severely injured. For more information, check out the Associated Press article here. The workers are calling for international support to ensure that Firestone does not interfere with union elections or workers right to organize. PLEASE SEND YOUR URGENT E-MAIL TODAY!

You can send an e-mail here- it only takes a minute.

my letter. Thankyou for bringing this to our attention Ume. We must encourage as many people as possible to send letters

I knew very little, if anything at all, about Liberia until I came across this article by Zadie Smith in the Guardian. The excerpt below talks about the company Firestone:

...the conditions on Liberian rubber plantations are well documented. In a CNN report of 2005, Firestone president Dan Adomitis explained that each worker ‘only’ taps 650 to 750 trees a day and that each tree takes two to three minutes. Taking the lower of these two estimates equals 21 hours a day of rubber tapping. In the past, parents brought their children with them to help them meet the quota; when this was reported, Firestone banned the practice. Now people bring their children before dawn.

You can send a letter to to Firestone president Dan Adomitis asking him to end the exploitatation of Liberia’s land, children, and workers here – it only takes a minute.