Super Bowl of Shame
What’s more American than football, apple pie and Chevrolet? How about cool brand new radial tires?
That’s what Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC wants us to believe. The former American, now Japanese-owned, tire manufacturer is spending about $10 million to sponsor this year’s Super Bowl halftime show in Phoenix. It will spend that much again in 2009 for next year’s halftime show when the Super Bowl takes place in Tampa. The company would like to fill your head with images of carefree cruising along some coastline, not a trouble in sight, riding on your four new Bridgestone Tires. It’s very important to Bridgestone Firestone that you retain this image and feeling inside of you whenever you hear the name Bridgestone Firestone.
Without this advertising-inspired image, you might start to consider and care about another one. Such as a seven-year-old Liberian girl, sick from toxins, with blistered skin, her eyes unprotected from the latex she is harvesting as she laboring on the Firestone Rubber Plantation. Or perhaps, you’d worry about striking workers and their families being beaten, detained and arrested solely because they want their union elections to be recognized and to, at last, be treated with dignity.
Child Labor
For the past 82 years, the tire giant has operated the world’s largest rubber plantation in Liberia. Children have worked on Firestone’s plantation in Liberia for decades. Rubber workers and their families have lived in squalid and inhumane conditions since the plantation’s beginning. Management wrongly believed that the world wasn’t paying attention. But they were wrong. Unfortunately for Bridgestone Firestone, the company’s dirty little secret is out of the bag.
Bridgestone’s legal and public relations dilemmas are now numerous. Former child laborers used on Firestone’s rubber plantation in Liberia have joined together in a 2005 class action lawsuit filed against the company in the U.S. District Court in the Southern district of Indiana, Indianapolis division. The lawsuit remains in discovery phase. With virtually no coverage in the mainstream press, its progress is being kept largely out of the public eye.
In late December, much to Bridgestone’s dismay, their Liberian farm workers who earn $3.19 a day, had their legitimate attempts to unionize approved by the Liberian Supreme Court. On December 6, when Firestone had earlier refused to recognize or bargain with the newly elected union, the workers went on strike and were brutally repressed by police forces.
“Firestone’s failure to recognize the results of a free and fair union election are a flagrant violation of International Labor Organization Standards,” said United Steel Workers President Leo W. Gerard. Since having its union approved by the Liberian Supreme Court, the pressure is on. Firestone must decide whether to listen to its workers or continue down its current path.
Workers’ Victory
“This is a huge victory for the workers,” said Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum. “We hope that Firestone’s management will resolve to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement in good faith with the new leaders.”
It’s been a tough couple of years for the tire giant. How can a corporation with this kind of reputation for disregarding human rights regain some of its international status and profits? How about agreeing to sponsor the 2008 Super Bowl XLII halftime show on February 3, along with next year’s Super Bowl halftime show and the 2008 Pro Bowl in Hawaii? What’s a better way to get Americans to associate the company’s name in a positive light than to flash it on all their television screens when they are having a good time, maybe drinking a beer, and enjoying a performance by rocker Tom Petty?
“Watched by 140 million viewers in the United States last year, the Super Bowl is annually the nation’s highest-rated TV program and the most-watched single-day sporting event,” the company said in its press release about the deal. FOX will broadcast the football game and the halftime show. In other words, sponsoring the Super Bowl guarantees high visibility. It’s therefore, a great venue for throwing in a couple of 30 second ads at up to $3 million apiece. According to Tirereview.com, Bridgestone’s other public relations activities currently include being the NFL’s “official tire” and sponsoring an interactive theme park.
Big Bucks
Of course, all of this adds up. Whether the money could be directed towards bettering the conditions at the plantation in Liberia is a good question to ask. While the exact costs associated with the 2008 Super Bowl XLII halftime sponsorship by Bridgestone Firestone are unknown, we do know that in 2005, Ameriquest reportedly spent $15 million for its Super Bowl halftime sponsorship. Sports Business Journal is estimating this that Bridgestone will spend about $10 million per year on the 2008 and 2009 Super Bowl halftime shows.
The United States buys more Bridgestone Firestone tires than any other country. We love our cars, but we should not be fooled into buying anything from a company that treats its workers no better than slave masters did long ago. They are simply profiting from the unjust sweat, toil and exploitation of fellow human beings.
If Bridgestone Firestone needs more proof of just how much the exploitation of child workers can affect their profits, they need look no further than to the effects such issues had upon sports giant Nike or Wal-Mart’s clothing line by Kathy Lee Gifford. Consumers felt ashamed to purchase these items once they learned the truth about their production. Profits and name brands were aversely affected.
Until Bridgestone Firestone improves conditions for its workers, enters into negotiations with elected union leadership and strictly prohibits the use of child labor on its rubber farm in Liberia, Americans should reconsider purchasing anything made by that company. This is an area where, absent a full-scale boycott by the U.S. government, a gesture made with the strength of the dollar speaks loudly and will be heard by Bridgestone Firestone’s owners. America’s solidarity with Liberia’s workers will also be heard and appreciated.
Jamie Menutis, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is a freelance journalist based in New Orleans. She worked with Liberian refugees in West Africa recording human rights abuses in the 1990s for the State Department’s U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program.
For More Information
To take action and learn more about the conditions at the Firestone Rubber Plantation in Liberia, visit the Stop Firestone Coalition website. The Institute for Policy Studies, the parent organization of Foreign Policy In Focus, is a Stop Firestone partner.
Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies
I hate football anyways so one more reason to hate this sport.
Go union! Go Liberian union workers!
Screw the Stupidbowl! I have better things to do with my time than watch that stupid game - like cheering on the Liberian union workers. Go union!
Thanks for this great article, Jamie! Here is a link to another article on Common Dreams about Bridgestone, Liberia and the Super Bowl: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/21/6504/.
Most importantly, PLEASE take action to tell Firestone that 80 years of exploitation is enough! Check out http://www.StopFirestone.org and http://www.LaborRights.org to get involved. There will be an e-mail action in the next few days related to the NFL’s partnership with Bridgestone/Firestone — so keep checking. No matter what your opinion is of football, this is a strategic opportunity to show solidarity with workers in Liberia.
yeah lets all go scream for our team for six hours so we can ignore whats really going on in the world!!! multiply by 200 million americans, what do you get? Half of america stupified, roaring to go get that 70 inch flat screen tv, just so they can show off to the neighbors and friends. Of course they put it on credit, its sooooo convenient. And who doesnt like the smell of burning rubber? get them! aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
As much as I do not want to defend football, I must say that child labor practice is more a problem of global economics and so-called free market capitalism. Wall Street and Corporations greed for more profits sets in play a chain reaction to reduce costs. Without real watch dogs or regulations, corporations are left to do whatever they please in the third world.
Thanks for the info. I once brought some vegetables to a friend of mine and he said, “I’ve never known the source of my food before.” I think this is the same for many products and services we consume. The more we can expose the processes that generate what we consume, the more people will be able to make informed decisions. I know a lot of people looked at diamonds a lot differently once the blood diamond brutality in Africa was exposed.
Demarara, you don’t think football is part of global economics and “free market” capitalism? The Super Bowl is its crowning glory! The modern version of bread and circuses sponsored by the very people you denounce.
Peace coup-why do you think that people don’t know these things? Propagandist media, substandard education? The oligarchs don’t want people to know. A lot of people are just too dumb or too lazy to want to know, or they don’t want to know cuz they like their lives just fine and wouldn’t want any uncomfortable thoughts/actions interfering. They would rather watch the Super Bowl. How many millions will watch this game? How many millions are marching on Washington DC to impeach Bush/Cheney and stop the war?
The truth is, if people knew how/where the metals for their games & computers, the textiles they wear, the food they eat, the wood for their furniture, the oil in their cars came from, they wouldn’t be able to handle it. Better to stay ignorant.
Wouldn’t it be great if Al Gore was the half-time show? He could present the critical parts of An Inconvenient Truth to the widest audience ever!
I’m a Giants and I am looking forward to the Super Bowl. I am however disappointed that it will be tainted with poor child labor practices. While I believe that the NFL does have some moral obligation to reject sponsors that exploit child labor, I do not feel that it is their job to be the police on this matter. Go Giants!
I hope that young people take up this issue. It’s perfectly suited to their idealism and they represent the future of Bridgestone. Let’s get something on the internet tube about this as well. The Firestone family and company investors need a kick in the arse.
Unless my memory deceives me, Firestone supplied Ford with all those killer faulty tires a few years ago. Remember the recalls? By joining with Bridgestone they have tried to remove that stigma by blending their Firestone name. From denying responsibility for trying to pass known faulty tires off to using child labor and suppressing unions, I wonder what the next corporate improvement will bring. Time to select a different brand of tires anyone?
I’m grateful for having this issue brought to my attention. I’ll join the boycott of Firestone and the Super Bowl, and encourage others to do the same.
Other posters have raised valid points concerning the global economy. When American corporations are allowed to move outside the jurisdiction of our labor laws, it creates a situation ripe for this kind of exploitation. As there seems little hope of reversing this trend, our best defense against becoming unwitting participants is to stay informed and let these corporations know that we will not purchase their products or otherwise support their organizations (including the NFL…sorry, String!).
Just FYI in reference to Doom N Gloom’s post: there is a Stop Firestone You Tube channel online here: http://www.youtube.com/StopFirestone — check it out more more information about the situation in Liberia and spread it far and wide! Even better: make your own video or join the Stop Firestone Picture Protest: http://www.stopfirestone.org/pictureprotest.htm
Thanks for this article. I’m in the market for new tires and now I know what brand NOT to buy.
The rich have always ridden on the backs of the poor. They always will. These ’sweat shops’ are the USA’s big secret. We watch the fireworks and the marching bands, remaining blissfully ignorant of the horrors going on behind the scenes.
Regardless, Firestone has always made lousy tires.
Viva la outsourcing! Let’s all race to the bottom!
Lorax,
Maybe their tires are so crappy because they have little kids making them
Hey folks, it isn’t just Liberia. All you need to do is go to West Virginia. The ecological disaster of mountaintopping in the name of “affordable energy.” Anything goes in WV. As a matter of fact they just retired their short-lived state motto “Open For Business.” I’m serious, you can’t make this stuff up.
But to Bridgestone/Firestone and the auto industry: “What makes tires black???” you may ask. It is called carbon black and is made by the oxygen starved combustion of petroleum products (usually used oil products) and automobile tires contain a very large percentage of this ingredient. In fact, every rubber or plastic product you buy and use that is black in color contains this substance. If you want to get an idea of what the first circle of hell looks like, you should visit a carbon black production facility. Of course the common names for carbon black would be “soot” or “creosote.”
If you’d like to see for yourself just go slightly south of Moundsville, WV and breath deeply.
Firestone, General Motors and Standard Oil of California (Chevron) were sued and found guilty of buying up and destroying the public transportation system of Los Angeles in order to push car buying. They were found guilty and fined $1.00. I don’t know if they paid it.
In the meantime, how many people died in car crashes and from respiratory illness in LA and other cities of the US? The switch to private auto transportation polluted our air and water, causes untold misery to people unfortunate enough to live on our oil and has hastened global warming.
Reflect on that as you watch the commercials.
The following is a link to an op-ed in today’s LA Times. It is a point/counterpoint piece between Firestone president Dan Adomitis and sports writer/Counterpunch contributor Dave Zirin.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-firestone29jan29,0,3158608.story
I agree with Dave Zirin’s commentary. I wonder why this writer did not mention his column, The Edge of Sports. Dave is often posted on CD and his ability to analyze the sports industry in the larger context of national and global issues is profound. Though most of us probably go to sports as an escape from “reality”, if we are paying attention, we cannot miss the confluence of that “reality” and global politics, economy and humanity’s lifestyle. Unfortunately, there are probably no tire companies that do not abuse their workers and the environment in which they live and work. Once again, the solution is not only in shining the light of truth on Bridgestone/Firestone; it is in shifting our entire lifestyle to one of sustainability and awareness of the consequences of our lifestyle choices. I will watch the Super Bowl, but I will not be persuaded by the advertisers and will probably not even watch the Halftime show. I admit that I enjoy watching football, even though I find it hard to condone the violence that it represents. I rationalize my watching as an exercise in educating myself on what other people are doing and how they are influenced by what they watch. So that is my admission. I don’t think any of us is immune from the projections of our society; we may only be vigilant to our behaviors and how they reflect what we believe, and then choose new beliefs to which we may attach our behaviors.
Stay vigilant and conscious and use your wisdom to change within; that is the best way to change your experience.
peace,
st john
Isn’t Tom Petty playing at halftime this year? He’s certainly a socially conscientious fellow. Think he knows about this? Someone should tell him.
The first two paragraphs are enough. They simply present a choice between irresponsibility and responsibility. Which are you going to choose? It’s that simple. The post-capitalist public policy will be based on such principles.
It would be nice to see in vivid color and translated into english the working conditions as described by the majority of the workers in India and China whom Americans have lost their jobs to. Funny how that type of information is so hard to find in our ‘oh so free’ country.
helpless central( the american weft ) marches on:
tens of millions of americans who watch the super bowl are idiot capitalist pigs, too stupid and greedy to bring about social change such as espoused by, um, those who know better and will build a majority to bring about change…by telling it that whatever it likes is meaningless wasteful crap…
yep, that’ll do it…
good work!
It may appear that things are the way they should be. That industries such as rubber concentrated in the hands of a few giant transnational corporations, employing generations of low-wage workers in geographically concentrated monoculture plantations, and with labor unions and lawyers to keep the corporations in check and help the workers. This apparently delivers maximum efficiencies and value to markets, exploits the “best of the best” management “talent”, and frees up more people to diversify into who knows what new areas of endeavor.
Wrongo, wrongo, wrongo, and wrongo. It’s all a mythology. First, the corporations are cultivating demand that outstrips the earth’s sustainable capacity. Cultivating demand is in complete violation of the assumptions underlying market theory (this is where the ivy-league economy students first contract the cognitive dissonance that will paralyze their entire careers).
Second, the corporations pretend to reign in production costs, but they rabidly consume petro-chemical and other inputs with monstrous hidden costs pushed off on the people and the planet. Third, wage slavery is a crime, pure and simple, whether it’s on the books or not. Fourth, monoculture is a type of lever by which capitalists jolt living communities with unnecessary/destructive market dynamics. Such levers simply should not exist for capitalists to put their claws on.
Instead, the demand may become naturalized, i.e. without capitalist manipulation so the market assumptions (that markets serve society’s better interests) become valid again. This greatly lowered demand is then met at the local level by small producers who know they are making positive, not negative, contributions with their livelihoods, and cuts out the petro-chemical contamination. Polyculture methods and local latex species are developed to maintain biosphere health. This is the alternative that Margaret Thatcher doesn’t want you to know.
Are they gonna have naked tits on the tube this year Thelma? Thelma, put that gun down and bring me a beer. Now stop kidding with that thing and…BAAAAMMM!
Owned by Japan and made in Liberia. Bought in the US. Apart from a boycott, does the US government not have leverage with these two countries? Has the US government not been aware of this for years and years under Amrican ownership? Did they try to change that? Will we be invading Liberia to fix the problem? Is this not a long-standing pattern?
Interesting when some of the people know some of the truth some of the time.
Unions must globalize. Sweatshops overseas create unemployment, slums and crime at home. Demand that Brazillian Ford auto workers get the same as every other nation’s auto workers and Detroit will revitalise its auto industry and Brazillians will be able to drive the cars they are making.
The idea that there is a limited amout of money and wealth to be shared amongst all is nonsense. The idea that for the rich to get richer, the poor must get poorer is also nonsense. The truth is that for the third world to live in the lifestyle enjoyed by us in the West, the destructive practises of planned obsolescence, resource wastage and the environmental damage brought on by unsustainable practices must be dumped in favour of smarter technologies.
Wealth is a reward in our society for effort but can’t the poor be people with only one car? Must they be starving and so desparate that we must become fascists to hold onto what we have?
LEST WE FORGET—THE NAM WAR STARTED BECAUSE THE FRENCH ARMY ASKED FOR OUR HELP TO KEEP THE MICHLEIN TIRE CO. IN CONTROL OF THE RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN S.E. ASIA WHEN THOSE COUNTRIES WANTED TO REGAIN POSSESSION OF THEIR NATURAL RESOURCES (NATIONALIZE)AND WE FOUND OURSELVES IN A SNAKE-PIT OF DECEPTION WHEN JFK’S PLANS TO PULL OUR ADVISORS OUT WAS SHORT CIRCUITED BY A BULLET. NUFF SAID BOUT MICHLEIN AND THE RUBBER INDUSTRY. BUT THAT BRINGS US TO IRAQ, CONTROL OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND BUSH
$3.19 a day! Chinese slave children work cheaper for Walmart. Over-paying workers makes them uppity. A situation the US has been working on since about 1970.
Look at the future corporations have planned for us.
Well, now I’ve got two more things to boycott, football and Firestone tires. Oh well, never cared much for football, anyway.
tnewman, thanks for the links. I have sent them to my list. I would suggest that something that we can do locally is to call each of the firestone bridgestone dealers and express our concern in terms of a boycott of their products. Additionally I plan to ignore the Super Bowl in favor of more productive activities.
It seems that multinational corporations have a poor history of redressing historical faults. But contemporary issues need to be dealt with immediately in as just and equitable manner as possible.
A little closer to home…..
Go to maps.live.com and search for Firestone Ave., Memphis, TN. Zoom in to the northwest corner of Firestone & Morehead St. Then switch to the Birds Eye view.
You’ll see a large empty lot containing one small building with a large smokestack bearing the Firestone logo. That lot used to contain a huge tire factory. It is now a toxic waste site.
For decades. Firestone poisoned its workers and surrounding residents. And they knew what they were doing because they had a fellow on the receiving dock who was ordered to remove poison labels from chemical containers. The workers handled and breathed those toxins with no protection. I witnessed this in the 1960s.
Though unionized, the workers were distracted from these dangers by the Jim Crow practices that were honored by the company and the union(segregated jobs and facilities). Example: I’m caucasian and after eating lunch with friends in a designated “colored” area, I recieved a very pointed warning from an armed security guard.
A few years ago, I documented my experiences at an NPR website. A local TV station saw it and contacted me for an interview. (To my knowledge, the story was spiked — it’s a FOX affilate.)
Then, I checked with a man who has lived in Memphis since the ’60s and asked if he knew anyone who had worked at Firestone. He did. I asked if any of them were sick. He said no — they were all dead.
God Bless America.
Lemme tell ya about football. It’s a bunch of guys in expensive plastic padding who run at each other as hard as they can to either get the ball to the end of the field or to stop the other guys from getting the ball to the other end of the field.
That’s all you need to know except there’s lots of money involved and some people pay big bucks to watch, to take pix, or to gamble.
Yawn!
TAKE ACTION NOW!! Send a letter to the NFL and Bridgestone by clicking here: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NFL08
Now that String knows that Bridgstone are complicit in child labour practices and extremely unhealthy ones he’s “disappointed” . Isn’t that touching . Not disappointed enough to stop him from watching the Superbowl . He is saying what millions of lazy Americans are saying ,”It’s not my job besides what effect could one voice have on a boycott. ?” Without the one voice like Rosa Parks to start things moving African Americans would still be riding at the back of the bus .
String , you just keep on saying , ” It’s not my job to boycott or critize .” As long as you know that this expression was on every German’s lips when Adolf Hitler became Cancellor in 1933.
” It’s not my job . ” That’s why America has its first but not last dictator . Who cares ? The SuperBowl is still on and Go Giants