Firestone is correct that "the amount of work that each employee is expected to complete, as well as the conditions of that work, is established through negotiations between the company and FAWUL [the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia." In fact, FAWUL and the company are negotiating a new contract right now.  Consumers around the world who e-mailed Firestone are encouraging Firestone to use these negotiations as an opportunity to finally end the exploitative and unpopular system of transporting latex on the plantation.

We expect Firestone to continue to negotiate with the union in good faith.  We encourage the company management to take a leadership role in implementing safer and less burdensome systems for workers.

In 2010, stepping onto Firestone's rubber plantation in Liberia is like being transported back centuries.  The majority of workers on the plantation are "rubber tappers" who collect raw latex from the rubber trees and pour them into buckets that weigh 75 pounds each.  The tappers carry two of the heavy buckets on each end of a stick on their backs for miles to a collection point where they are weighed and recorded to ensure that each rubber tapper meets his or her daily production quota.  It is tragically ironic that a company that produces tires refuses to provide trucks for workers to transport the heavy buckets of latex.  This type of work system is completely outdated and has been upgraded on most rubber plantations globally, for example in other major rubber-producing countries li

On the same day that the Department of Labor went public with their new report, major chocolate and candy companies, who are members of the National Confectioners Association, congregated in Washington D.C in order to push their legislative agenda. Despite that 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa, where child labor and slavery are rampant, little has been done by major chocolate corporations to end these abuses. Since 2001 ILRF has urged the chocolate industry to take responsibility for child labor in their chains of production, yet companies continue to purchase and reap profits from child exploitative cocoa.