The Power of International Solidarity

Leslie is joined by Kevin Mapp, the USW’s International Vice President of Human Affairs.  Kevin coordinates bargaining in the union’s health care, containers, public sector and ship building sectors.

The pair discuss the power of international solidarity in four parts.

Part 1: Global Solidarity and Corporate Greed

Multinational corporations operate globally, oftentimes attempting to pit workers in different countries against each other in a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions.
Unionized workers, however, understand that the only answer to large-scale corporate greed is global solidarity.

    - The USW works with global labor federations like IndustriALL and UNI so that they can share information about operations in different countries.

    - The USW maintains formal strategic alliances with at least six other unions in Australia, Mexico, Germany, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

    - The USW also maintains relationships with unions in a number of other countries as they work to ensure that workers have a place to succeed in the global economy.

All of these relationships are premised on the simple truth that workers the world over confront many of the same challenges, and their greatest strength is solidarity.

Part 2: Urgency in Liberia and Bridgestone’s Operations

Nowhere has this been more urgent than in Liberia, where workers on Bridgestone’s massive rubber plantation have been struggling for decades to improve their working conditions.

Japanese-owned Bridgestone is one of the world’s largest tire and rubber manufacturers. It employs more than 125,000 workers worldwide, including approximately 4,000 members of the USW. Unions in Japan, South Africa, Europe, and Brazil also represent Bridgestone workers.

In Harbel, Liberia, Bridgestone operates the world’s largest contiguous rubber plantation, covering some 185 square miles. It’s owned by Bridgestone subsidiary, Firestone Liberia, and approximately 7,000 workers reside there with their families.

    - These workers both live and work on the plantation, buying food from the company store and sending their children to schools run by the company.

    - The work is difficult, slashing bush, tapping trees, draining latex into metal buckets that weigh 65 pounds each when full, and carrying them long distances to weigh stations.

    - This latex then goes straight into the North American supply chain, serving as the starting point for American-made tires.

Part 3: Unionization and Challenges at Firestone Liberia

In 1990, Terry Renninger, then president of Bridgestone’s Liberia operations, said, “The best way to think of it is as an old Southern plantation.”

Indeed, in the years leading up to the formation of their union, the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), workers endured what a 2005 human rights lawsuit called “forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery.”

In 2007, workers successfully organized, and since then they’ve been making incremental progress in improving working conditions on the plantation, though serious problems remain regarding wages, health care, housing, workplace safety, and more.

On top of this, in 2019, Bridgestone fired more than 2,000 workers, forcing them instead to work for contractors, doing the same work but earning significantly lower wages without benefits or other protections provided by FAWUL’s contract.

According to the U.S.-based Solidarity Center:

    - One of the big benefits they lost was the education promised to their children, who now must walk long distances through difficult terrain to attend classes in open-air classrooms without desks or other supplies.

    - Workers struggle to afford protective glasses, boots, or gloves.

    - Living conditions are cramped, and payment for food comes out of workers’ paychecks, which can sometimes leave them with zero or negative balances on their pay slips.

Part 4: Current Efforts and Hope for the Future

Since then, these workers have pushed back, with the support of unions like the USW, as well as the Solidarity Center and others.

    - On Aug. 31, 2024, contractors voted overwhelmingly to unionize and are attempting to rejoin FAWUL.

    - FAWUL is currently in negotiations with Bridgestone, and one of the key issues is the fate of contractors.

The USW has been proud to provide strategic and bargaining support, but the true strength comes from workers themselves who have shown they’re willing to take action.

The outcome of these negotiations is still not certain, but it’s clear that workers – across the world – are strongest when they’re united.

Kevin Mapp also serves as a trustee on the USW Health and Welfare Fund, is an advisory board member to the Institute for Career Development, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Michigan AFL-CIO Labor Foundation. He is a graduate of the Harvard Trade Union Program and the Cornell National Labor Leadership Initiative.A committed activist, Kevin also serves on the boards of both the metro-Detroit and national A. Philip Randolph Institutes (APRI), where he works to promote social and economic justice, voting rights and community education.

Follow the USW on Facebook, Instagram and X, using the handle @steelworkers, and visit their website at www.USW.org.