Liberia has given a 90-day ultimatum to the management of Bridgestone’s Firestone rubber plantation to improve its workers’ living conditions, Labour Minister Kofi Wood told Reuters.
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“We have asked the Firestone management to improve the living conditions of the workers…We have given them 90 days,” Wood told the news agency, without specifying what the government would do if the tyre maker missed the deadline.
An official at Firestone in Liberia reportedly said the company had not been notified of a deadline.
Reuters said the International Labour Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in November against Firestone, alleging conditions at the plantation amounted to virtual slavery but the tyre maker denies the allegations.
The report noted that, in a country where most people live on less than a dollar a day, Firestone’s $US3.19 daily wage is above average, and the company says free healthcare and schooling is provided for the workers and their families.
The 240 square-mile plantation is home to more than 6,000 official workers. They convened a strike in February to protest over pay and working conditions, Reuters added.
The government has received a 10-year plan from Firestone aimed at improving conditions at the plantation, the report said, but Wood wants improvements, on a 5-year timescale, to start soon.
