May 2008: After giving depositions, a number of the plaintiffs and witnesses experienced intimidation from Firestone managers.  Click here to read a letter from the lawyers representing the child laborers to Firestone’s lawyers.

April 2008: Depositions were taken of the plaintiffs (child laborers) in Liberia.  Initially, Firestone’s lawyers refused to provide interpreters for the witnesses, which led to considerable miscommunication.   The International Rights Advocates filed a Motion for a Protective Order calling on the court to issue a protective order to require that any depositions of plaintiffs be conducted with a translator if needed.  You can read the motion here to read transcripts of how Firestone’s lawyers treated the plaintiffs during depositions.  The motion was granted by the court.

January 2008: International Rights Advocates filed declarations from the child plaintiffs in the lawsuit in support of their Motion for Class Certification.  To find out the abuses that child laborers face on the Firestone plantation, check out the unredacted declarations of James Roe 1-15 here and Jane Roe 1-15 here.

December 2007: International Rights Advocates filed a Motion for Class Certification meaning that if approved, the plaintiffs would be classified as representative of a class of current and former child laborers on the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia.

June 26, 2007: The judge in the lawsuit against Firestone has rejected Firestone’s motion to dismiss the case and has given an order to move forward on child labor claims.  Click here to read the judge’s order!

Since Judge Hamilton’s decision, the court has set a schedule to begin the discovery process and class certification. In the meantime, International Rights Advocates has plans to spend time in Liberia interviewing witnesses from among the 10,000 workers on the plantation. IRAdvocates also plans on retaining documentation on the conditions of the plantation and the effects of those conditions on the child workers.

April 6, 2006: The Central District of California granted Firestone’s request to transfer the case to Indianapolis, Indiana. Firestone requested the transfer because it claims a trial in California would be inconvenient for its employees in Indiana and Tennessee who will have to testify as to their role in the forced labor of the tappers on the Firestone plantation in Liberia. Unfortunately, the Court agreed to Firestone’s request ruling that, even though Firestone imports, sells and distributes their forced labor produced rubber in California, California, Firestone does not have a “significant connection to the activities alleged in the complaint,” and that Indiana, which is home to two of the corporate defendants, has a stronger connection to the case.

The ruling by the California court does not affect the substance of the workers’ forced labor claims. However, as a result of the transfer, the workers will now have to face Firestone in its home court in Indiana.

As soon as the Indiana court receives the transfer from California, counsel for both parties will submit further briefing on the status of the case to the Court, and the case will likely proceed from where it left off in California.

November 17, 2005: International Rights Advocates filed a class action law suit against Firestone along with several plaintiffs, now adult, who had been child laborers and their children, who are currently child laborers, on the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia.

“Trapped in poverty and coercion” is how the plaintiffs describe their lives. The policies for running the plantation have not changed since 1926 when the plantation first opened. Only the quota of trees tapped for latex has increased. All the plaintiffs still work or have worked on the plantation. The plantation child laborers are all minors whose fathers work for the plantation. These children are forced to work full-time in hazardous conditions alongside their fathers so that they can make their quota. Plantation workers instruct fathers that if they cannot make their quota, they need to bring their children with them to help. The children’s labor usually includes tapping rubber trees with sharp tools, exposing their eyes to the potentially blinding power of raw latex, applying dangerous pesticides to trees by hand, or carrying two 75-pound buckets at a time filled with latex. None of the employees are given safety tools or warnings about the dangers of their work.

Daniel J. Adomitis, President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company, LLC has personally witnessed this enslavement and has done nothing to stop what so easily makes him a profit. The plaintiffs have brought their case to the United States because Liberia, still recovering from years of tumultuous civil war, does not even have a legal system stable enough to punish those committing human rights violations on its own land. US consumers help with almost half of the yearly profit for Firestone. In 2004, world wide net sales were in excess of $23 billion, and 9.8 billion of those dollars came from the Americas. The daily wage of one employee, however, is $3.19 before deductions.

Allegations of exploitation and forced labor have plagued the plantation since its opening. Firestone barely masked their attempts to use as much man power as necessary to increase profits. Through the Paramount Chiefs Assistance Plan, the plantation paid tribal chiefs a sum for each man they turned over to work. In 1955 alone, Firestone reportedly spent $90,000 paying chiefs for their readily available slave labor. Sadly, this created a vicious cycle of people born on the plantations merely to grow up and take their parents’ places. Many employees on the plantation are 3rd or 4th generation workers and have never set foot off Firestone’s grounds.
In an interview on CNN, Firestone President Adomitis claimed that each worker only had to tap 650 (the actual number is 1,125) trees a day and that tapping a tree only took a couple of minutes. CNN took the lower number, two minutes, and still calculated that one worker would have to spend 21 hours a day working to fill his quota. If a worker does not fill his quota, he loses 50% of his pay, resulting in only $1.59 a day. This is why the families have been forced to bring their children to work. They must enslave their own children, alongside themselves, or watch them starve. This is the choice Firestone has forced Liberian plantation workers to make.

Even as they try to provide a better life for their children, parents are overpowered in every direction. The plantation claims it provides “free” schooling and medical clinics, but there are several exceptions. The clinics are only open Mondays, Wednesday s and Fridays. The workers are charged fees to send their children to the schools. Only people born on the plantation grounds are eligible. To prove eligibility, one must produce a birth certificate that can only be produced with exorbitant fees also charged by the plantation.

The broad spectrum of human rights abuses is clear. Firestone has used the forced labor of thousands to profit few. Even the finished product is sacrificed to cut costs. In August of 2000, CNN reported the recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires, the second largest tire recall in history. The largest tire recall in history was also a recall of Firestone Tires, 14.5 million of them, in 1978. In both cases, the tires had been considered the cause of numerous accidents and injuries. See Firestone Tires Recalled, CNN Money, August 9, 2000.

Firestone cannot continue to abuse human rights in Liberia. Other companies offer similar products at competitive rates. Unless Firestone stops the enslavement from which it has profited for so long, conscientious customers will stop buying Firestone products and the company will begin to feel the fear it has instilled in all the plantation workers: the fear of not being able to make ends meet.