[Enclosure]
Statement of Firestone Position on Forced Labor
Inquiry
In June, 1924 the Firestone Company first began operations in
Liberia31 by the employment of 100 laborers
to put in condition an abandoned but fully matured rubber plantation
of 2,000 acres which the Liberian Government leased to us for
experimentation.
In 1926 our agreement for 1,000,000 acres of land on lease for 99
years was ratified32 and we commenced operation on a large scale.
During those intervening two years we investigated labor supply and
conditions and gradually built up our labor force by the employment
of all natives who applied for work.
Knowledge of our enterprise and wage scale spread throughout the
interior and when we were ready to enlarge our operations it was
only necessary for us to send word into the interior to obtain all
the labor we needed. We did this by sending members of our American
staff into the hinterland to notify the labor and their chiefs of
the opportunity for employment and make such arrangements as were
necessary to meet the economic and other conditions of tribal
organization which African customs demand.
The Liberian Government is not connected with our labor recruiting
except that it notified officially its various commissioners and
officials up-country that it was agreeable to allowing the natives
to seek employment with the Firestone Company if they so desired.
For purposes of interior administration and maintaining an economic
balance in the country, the Government desired information as to the
numbers and whereabouts of every native employed by Firestone and
for this
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purpose
established a Labor Bureau that had been provided for by law some
ten years before. To this Bureau the Company has sent each month a
complete roll of every native employed, his district, chief and
tribe.
There is no contract with the Government or any individual relative
to employment with the Company. In many instances the chief of a
tribe has informed us through the headman who accompanied a group of
laborers from the interior that it was the chief’s and laborer’s
desire that they remain with us only a limited period. If, for some
reason, any one or all of the laborers did not desire to remain the
entire period stated, they were paid off promptly and allowed to
depart without any restraint. In other words, all labor employed by
the Company at any time has been voluntary, free to come and go
whenever it saw fit. Each laborer is paid individually at regular
intervals and he is not allowed to become indebted to the
Company.
Many chiefs and their tribes have come voluntarily to the Company’s
operations and requested permission to settle upon the plantations.
Last year there were some 2,000 natives encamped just outside the
confines of our operations awaiting an opportunity to secure
employment. We have many groups of laborers who have been with us
three years or more. Originally they came for a few months trial of
the work, but remained with us permanently. Other groups have
returned three or four times after visits to their homes in the
interior and each time have remained longer periods at work.
We have provided well-built, two-room houses, with porches, running
water, good sanitary facilities, in villages of from 16 to 20 houses
for our labor upon the plantations. These houses and medical care,
including a modern hospital, are free to all native labor. The
natives themselves run these communities and maintain law and order.
All roads entering and leaving the operations are open and free
except the right to search for and confiscate liquor, the use of
which is discouraged in every way. Missionaries and other visitors
are free at any time to visit the labor and their villages.
In reference to the proposed investigation of forced labor
conditions, the Firestone Plantations Company welcomes the inquiry
and has already notified the American and Liberian Governments that
it will assist the investigation in every way.
