The American Football Super Bowl is one of the most watched sporting event in the world, this last Sunday, some 100 million TV viewers tuned in to the XXLIII edition of the game in Tampa, Florida. The United States-based tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone, the largest rubber plantation operator in Liberia for two consecutive years has paid premium prices to promote its Bridgestone tire line during the popular American Football Super Bowl halftime show.

At Super Bowl XXLIII, Firestone aired two 30 seconds commercials about $30 million a piece. Yet on its plantations in Liberia, workers endure one of the worst working conditions imagined.

The Voice of America news portal and LA Times are some media outlets reporting Firestone’s unfair labor practices in Liberia. The VOA reports the Firestone/Super Bowl commercial relations have “prompted an email action campaign by the international labor rights forum to raise corporate and public awareness about inferior living and working conditions faced by Liberian plantation rubber workers to get Firestone to raise its commitments to help its African laborers.”

For the past two years, the Washington, DC-based International Labor Rights Forum [ILRF] has been waging an internet and media crusade, coordinated with a letter writing campaign to raise the consciousness of NFL, television network, and advertising executives who Newman [of ILRF] speculates have lacked the sensitivity to press Firestone to improve conditions. – VOA

The ILRF action “has generated hundreds of email letters to Firestone from people around the world and since the Super Bowl last year”, according to VOA. Now Liberian “workers on the plantation have an independent and democratically elected union. And they’ve signed their first historic contract in August of 2008. So this year, we’re really focusing on insuring that Firestone actually implements the terms of that contract.”

But Firestone needs to do more and implement many of the important improvements in the new contract.

For example, “the new contract reduced the size of the production quota” according to AFL-CIO an international labor coalition. “Many workers report that they are still being forced to produce at the old quota level, which means they must hire subcontractors or use the labor of their family members in order to finish their work and be paid”, AFL-CIO disclosed on its blog.

In addition, Firestone also has not fully implemented health and safety improvements in the new contract and has not provided transportation. The new contract also mandated improved conditions for children, including transportation to school.

Firestone has been in operations in Liberia since 1926. Firestone rubber tappers live in crowded shacks without running water, electricity or indoor latrines and are required to meet an unreasonably high production quota in order to receive their meager pay.

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