(All pictures have been removed from the articles because they take up so much memory in each post. To see the pictures use the web address and visit the sites of the newspapers.)
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-story-about-union-deal-with-builder-an-unfair-smear-20150611-ghleiu.html
Scouts Canada registration starts in
Huntsville
Huntsville Forester, Sep 03, 2015
SCOUTS CANADA REGISTRATION BEGINS IN HUNTSVILLE
Submitted by Shawn Forth
Scouts Canada
HUNTSVILLE-LAKE OF BAYS – As the summer comes to an end, and
children go back to school, Scouting groups in Whispering Pines Area (Muskoka,
Almaguin Highlands, Parry Sound, Simcoe) are preparing for another busy year.
In Huntsville, the registration night will be Thursday,
Sept. 17, at Trinity United Church, 33 Main St. E., from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and
Friday, Sept. 18, at the Huntsville Place Mall. Contact Judy at 705-789-9406
for information.
You can also register online at www.myscouts.ca
The 2015-2016 registration fee is $190 per youth (financial
assistance is available). You can register for scouting all year round.
Parents can find out more information by visiting our
Facebook page www.facebook.com/CottageCountryScouting
Programs are offered to youth – both boys and girls – from
ages 5 to 17. Beavers, Wolf Cubs, Scouts, and Venturers are the four Scouting
programs that aim to challenge the youth:
Beavers — Sharing, Sharing, Sharing
A positive group experience for children aged 5-7 designed
to develop in them a love of nature, an ability to share and play together, and
an ability to express their creativity.
Wolf Cubs — Do Your Best
Cubs is a program for children aged 8-10 designed for
maximum enjoyment and learning through activities in such areas as outdoors,
acting, games, music, Badge and Star work, handicrafts, and stories.
Scouts — Be Prepared Venturers
— Challenge!
Scouts and Venturers are adventurous programs for young
people aged 11-14 and 14-17 in which the members develop skills, earn Badges
and awards, and have fun in the outdoors through hiking and camping, all
designed to help guide them as they move towards good citizenship.
Scouting is recognized world-wide for its role in helping
young people to develop physically, intellectually, socially, and spiritually.
Scouting is all about building confidence and self-esteem, learning important
life skills and leadership skills, team building, outdoor adventure, education,
and fun!
All of the local Scout programming is done by volunteers,
who recognize the value of Scouting in the lives of our youth. These dedicated
individuals put together exciting, challenging, and fun programs that keep the
youth motivated throughout the year.
Struggling students get second chance
with new ACE program
Category: Local News
Published: Friday, 16 October 2015 06:00
Written by Grace Protopapas
Guests take a look at the new classroom space for the ACE
program inside the Kenora Attendance Centre.
Students who struggle with attending classes in high school
are being given a second chance.
The Keewatin Patricia District School Board has introduced a
new program called the ACE program. Steve Quin is the director, and he explains
what it is.
"ACE stands for academic connections through
empowerment. It's a classroom for at risk youth that are referred through
Beaver Brae. They are here to have a combination of life skills, education,
mental health programming and we do a lot of certificates through partnerships
with other agencies," he said.
The program launched this September in partnership with the
school board, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services and WJS. Joan Kantola
is the Superintendent of Education and she explains what types of students they
work with.
"The students have a variety of challenges. I think one
of the significant challenges is that they struggle with feeling that they are
part of the typical school environment that they may have been a part of at one
point in time. That may be for a variety of reasons but one of them is that
they may have had some interaction with the law," she said.
The program is run at the Attendance Centre on Lakeview
Drive. Bright colours and glass walls adorn the building, to make it feel less
like a stuffy classroom. Quin talks about what a typical day can look like.
"We run the regular school days. Part of their day will
be in the classroom, and the other part will be doing programming with the
transition leader. It could be something like substance abuse, anger
management, we have a girls group, cultural awareness programs or something
like that," he said.
Quin adds that the main goal is the transition them back
into high school, or help them graduate and then transition them back into
society. The program currently has nine children enrolled. Quin says they're
already seeing some success.
"One of our youth we have attending right now is
actually going back to Beaver Brae part time. She spends half her time here and
the other half there. Depending on how she does here this semester, she may be
back at Beaver Brae full time next semester," he said.
The program has room for ten students. The Director of
Education, Sean Monteith, and the CEO of WSJ Canada, Peter Farnden, were both
very impressed with the work of the staff.
The KPDSB received a $160,000 from the Ministry of Education
to launch the program. The ministry was looking for school boards to partner
with community agencies and find innovative ways of reaching out to the youth
who sometimes slip through the cracks of the regular school system.
Plan to abolish school board
elections 'sexist', federation says
CAROLINE PLANTE, MONTREAL GAZETTE
Published on: October 15, 2015 | Last Updated: October 15,
2015 8:13 PM EDT
Signs for English school board elections last year. MARIE-FRANCE
COALLIER / MONTREAL GAZETTE
Quebec — The federation representing francophone school
boards in the province said Thursday it believes the government’s decision to
abolish school board elections is “sexist” and will lead to the creation of
“boys’ clubs.”
Josée Bouchard, president of the Fédération des commissions
scolaires du Québec, argued school democracy in Quebec is the only democracy
that has achieved gender parity, in other words, electing the same number of
women and men.
She said 51 per cent of elected school board officials are
women, while 49 per cent are men, and the same numbers apply to anglophone
school boards.
“I want to get the premier, the education minister, all the
MNAs and the rest of society thinking,” she said. “Do we want to tell women
‘bravo for your hard work carving out your place in school politics, now it’s
over?’ ”
Élaine Hémond, the founder of Femmes, politique &
démocratie, a group helping more women get involved in politics, said only 27
per cent of the members of the National Assembly are women.
Education Minister François Blais is expected to table a
bill abolishing school board elections — which cost $20 million — by Nov 15.
The minister has already made public his intention to create a new nomination
process in which parents would be more involved. Commissioners could be
appointed at annual parent meetings, or through governing boards, instead of by
universal suffrage, Blais suggested.
This nomination process would lead to the creation of boys’
clubs, Bouchard said. “If we proceed through nomination, if I look at
nominations for boards (in general in Quebec), if we look at statistics, we can
fairly deduce that it will be more natural to name men,” she said.
Bouchard said that on the off chance the new nomination
process produces parity, it will not have the same value because
representatives will not be properly elected by the population.
Blais’s press attaché, Julie White, said the government’s
objective is to empower parents, and they include women. “We are confident that
the new model we will soon table will meet their needs,” White said.
Bouchard and Hémond were accompanied Thursday by three other
female leaders, including Liberal Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette, who said she
has been working — unsuccessfully — for seven years on a federal bill to force
publicly-traded companies to have women make up at least 40 per cent of their
board members.
“Women are a tad more dedicated than their male counterparts
for the simple reason that they have had to work harder to get there,” she
said.
Hervieux-Payette recounted how when she served on the Le
Gardeur de Repentigny school board, between 1973 and 1979, that her male
colleagues would often not look at their files. Inside the Senate, she said men
“are in their offices” while women sit in the Senate chamber and do their work.
The senator said she wants to see school board elections
maintained in Quebec, because they promote “gender equality in public life and
are excellent springboards to launch women into politics.”
cplante@montrealgazette.com
twitter.com/cplantegazette
Opinion: It's dangerous to accept
school shootings as routine
PATRICIA ROMANO, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE
Published on: October 8, 2015 | Last Updated: October 8,
2015 1:36 PM EDT
People hold a prayer circle outside Snyder Hall on the
campus of Umpqua Community College on October 5, 2015 in Roseburg, Oregon.
Despite crime scene tape still being stretched around large areas of the
school, the campus was open to staff and students today for the first time
since last Thursday when 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer went on a shooting
rampage in Snyder Hall killing nine people and wounding another nine before he
was killed. Classes are not scheduled to resume until next week.
People hold a prayer circle outside Snyder Hall on the
campus of Umpqua Community College on October 5, 2015 in Roseburg, Oregon.
Despite crime scene tape still being stretched around large areas of the
school, the campus was open to staff and students today for the first time
since last Thursday when 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer went on a shooting
rampage in Snyder Hall killing nine people and wounding another nine before he
was killed. Classes are not scheduled to resume until next week. SCOTT OLSON /
GETTY IMAGES
I remember where I was on Dec. 6, 1989, after the
Polytechnique massacre. And I remember where I was on Sept. 13, 2006: meeting
in my Dawson College office with a student to talk about an assignment, when
the first terrified students came running down the hall.
But I doubt I will remember much, if anything, about the
recent shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.; it will fade
into the background along with the many others. U.S. President Barack Obama is
quite right — these shootings have become so routine, though seeing them that
way is dangerous, resulting in an acceptance of their inevitability.
This is a serious problem in the United States. A recent
study by the Boston Globe identified 294 mass shootings — defined as four or
more people having been shot — so far this year. But this epidemic of mass
shootings is not only a U.S. problem. The phenomenon of copycat shootings is
very real; the Dawson shooter was inspired by Columbine; the Virginia Tech
shooter by Dawson. The easy access to guns is a significant contributing factor
to the violence in the United States, but, despite stronger gun laws here,
military-style weapons and ammunition are not hard to obtain. The Dawson
shooter entered the college with three legally obtained weapons and more than
1,000 rounds of ammunition.
Violence, however, is not “normal” or “routine.” Reducing
violence both locally and globally is an attainable goal. Meeting people’s
basic physical and psychological needs, creating inclusive communities and
providing opportunities for education and employment are essential; give people
something meaningful to lose, and few will embrace violence or be seduced by
violent extremist ideologies.
So, why, despite the suffering it leaves in its wake, the
repeated examples of the failure of violent solutions, and the fact that human
beings flourish in conditions of peace, can we so easily be convinced that
violence is normal, inevitable, effective and even empowering in the real world
and harmless fun in our virtual ones? The school shooter has much in common
with the latest Western recruit to ISIS; one may have some vague political
goals, but both find extreme acts of violence to be justified and emotionally
appealing. While most of us are appalled by their acts, few of us inherently
reject violence as a failed strategy.
Even after years of teaching about the worldwide suffering
caused by violence and the limits to military solutions, I often find myself
thinking, when Western forces are about to be deployed, that maybe this time
our use of violence will provide the needed solution. Certainly, deep
skepticism about violence does not mean that the use of force is never needed;
few of us would oppose sending armed forces to protect people who are in
immediate risk of being killed or the gunning down of a school shooter on a
rampage. But, it is the ease by which violence is accepted that we should find
problematic.
Of course, this acceptance is not surprising; cognitive
science has revealed how so much of our thinking and our responses to
particular situations occur unconsciously, rooted in the frames, narratives and
metaphors that we have picked up since childhood. And, in a culture filled with
brutally violent imagery and emotionally powerful narratives that extol the
value of violence, accepting violence has become too easy. To view 294 mass
shootings in a supposed peaceful country as routine is simply one further
illustration of the need to begin to ask some fundamental questions about
violence. The classroom seems like the right place to start.
Patricia Romano is a Humanities teacher and founder of
Inspire Solutions, a Dawson College peace initiative that seeks to foster a
college-wide reflection on the problem of violence and the possibilities for
creating a more peaceful world.
Bill Shorten: Story about union deal
with builder an 'unfair smear'
June 11, 2015
Latika Bourke
National political reporter
Bill Shorten has described as an "unfair smear" a
news report that says he oversaw a controversial deal to boost union members
during his time as boss of the Australian Workers Union.
The article published by Fairfax details evidence provided
to the royal commission into trade unions established by the Coalition.
Invoices show the AWU invoiced builder Winslow Constructions $38,000 in union
fees. The practice of companies paying workers union fees is frowned upon.
The Opposition Leader said he would be happy to appear
before the royal commission but said he had done nothing wrong.
"The story in today's paper is an unfair smear,"
Mr Shorten told reporters in Sydney.
"Any implication that I am not completely motivated and
committed to getting a better deal for workers, for productive relations at
companies and for standing up for people is completely unfair and false,"
he said.
When pressed why a private company would pay members' union
fees – Mr Shorten said the agreement the union struck delivered pay rises for
workers and said the question was a matter for the company.
When asked if he would be happy to appear before the royal
commission if called, Mr Shorten said: " I have indicated I'm more than
happy to co-operate".
But he refused to say if it was right for his successor at
the AWU and factional ally, Ceaser Melham, to quit his position as Victorian
government whip.
"I left the union at the end of 2007. It is matter for
him," he said.
Mr Shorten challenged Mr Abbott to a town hall debate to
compare their records in standing up for workers.
Cabinet Minister Christopher Pyne on Thursday said Mr
Shorten should shine a light on the deal between the AWU and Winslow
Constructions.
"What the Australian people want to know is what he
knew and when, about these arrangements with Winslow Constructions," he
said.
Shadow employment minister Brendan O'Connor defended the
integrity of the Labor leader.
"He has fought for Australian workers his entire adult
life. He did so as a leader of the union movement. He's doing so now as the
Leader of the Opposition."
Mr O'Connor accused the government of conducting a
"witch hunt" through the royal commission.
"The bigger question in all of these matters is, why is
the government in a position to spend tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to
just go after the political opponents as it sees it. We think that's
unconscionable and indeed it's improper and the government really of course who
are seeking to smear us will indeed have to account for that now and at a later
date," he said.
Union deals threaten to sink Shorten
By Kathy Marks
5:00 AM Friday Jun 19, 2015
Bill Shorten's position as Australian Opposition Leader is
looking increasingly shaky after another round of harmful revelations about
deals struck by the trade union he ran before entering Parliament.
The Labor leader's political judgment is also being
questioned amid a dreadful week that has seen him forced to beat an
embarrassing retreat over people-smuggler payments, and that left his party the
sole opponent of pension changes designed to benefit the less well-off.
And as Shorten's popularity ratings plummet to an all-time
low, the Sydney Morning Herald has called on him to "consider his
future", saying his "continued tenure [as leader] is damaging his
party and the interests of the people he claims to represent".
The revelations relate to his lengthy service as Victorian
state secretary, then national secretary, of the influential Australian Workers
Union (AWU), and to large sums paid to the union by companies after he struck
deals perceived as favourable to employers and disadvantageous to workers.
According to Fairfax Media yesterday, AWU Victoria received
payments totalling nearly A$300,000 ($335,735) from a construction company,
Thiess John Holland, following an agreement in 2005 to cut wages and conditions
for workers on a major Melbourne road project, the A$2.5 billion East Link
tollway.
The deal, which enabled the company to work around the clock
and complete the project five months early, reportedly saved it up to A$100
million.
The union branch was also given hundreds of thousands of
dollars by a global chemical manufacturer, Huntsman, to employ a worker whose
duties included "stopping trouble" and helping to close down a
factory without industrial unrest, according to the Australian.
The implication is that the AWU bolstered its fortunes, and
the clout of its leaders within the labour movement, at the expense of workers
- an accusation explicitly levelled by Prime Minister Tony Abbott this week.
Shorten has denied any impropriety, and said he would
respond in detail when he testifies before a royal commission into trade union
corruption. His lawyer Leon Zwier said Shorten had asked the commission to
fast-track his appearance to July during Parliament's winter break, rather than
have it in August or September as scheduled.
But history is also haunting Shorten in the shape of The
Killing Season, a three-part ABC TV documentary investigating the troubled Rudd
and Gillard Labor era. This week's episode alleged that Mark Arbib, a key Labor
factional player, told Gillard that "you couldn't trust Bill
Shorten". Arbib has denied the claim.
Now Shorten, who played a pivotal role in the knifing of
both Rudd and Gillard, is facing a possible mutiny himself, or so some are
claiming. Labor MPs complain he is obsessed with the 24-hour news cycle and
disregards the advice of senior colleagues, according to Dennis Shanahan, a
columnist with the Australian. The MPs see a "frightening parallel [with
Rudd]" and fear Shorten is "doing a Kevin", he wrote yesterday.
This week, Shorten abruptly abandoned his pursuit of the
Government over payments to an asylum-seeker boat crew, after it emerged that
Labor governments repeatedly paid money to "disrupt" people smuggler
operations.
He also faced criticism of his refusal to back pension cuts
for people with assets of more than A$1.15 million. The Greens' decision to
support the Government left Labor completely isolated on the issue.
The documentary's title refers to the time of year when both
Rudd and Gillard were toppled - this time of year, just before the parliamentary
winter break After Rudd returned to power in June 2013, he changed the party's
rules to give grassroots Labor members an equal say with parliamentarians in
electing leaders.
Australian columnist Peter Van Onselen yesterday quoted a
Labor frontbencher as telling him that, had that not happened, "Bill could
have become a victim of the killing season himself".
- NZ Herald
Union Buried Evidence of Firestone
Support of Warlord After Labor Deal
During a bitter strike in the 1990s, the United Steelworkers
of America found Firestone supported warlord Charles Taylor, but never released
its findings.
In 1996, Firestone, one of the world's largest tire-makers,
was locked in a grueling labor dispute with the United Steelworkers of America.
The union portrayed it as a struggle between blue-collar workers and a company
that was aiming to slash the pay and benefits of its employees. Thousands of
workers went on strike, and the union mounted a consumer boycott of Firestone
products and those of its Japanese-owned corporate parent, Bridgestone. There
were protest demonstrations, too, including a "black flag" motorcycle
brigade at the nation's most famous auto race, the Indianapolis 500.
The steelworkers – who had begun representing Firestone
employees after a merger with another union, the United Rubber Workers, in 1995
– also began looking into the company's activities abroad, most notably its
rubber operations in Liberia. With the help of private investigators, the union
uncovered evidence that in the early 1990's Firestone had been the source of
money and logistical support for Charles Taylor, the notorious Liberian warlord
whose violent bid for power had ensnared the country in a horrific civil war. The
union then developed plans to use what it believed might have been criminal
conduct by Firestone as leverage in the contract negotiations.
Plans were hatched to hold press conferences. A secret
briefing was prepared for Vice President Al Gore. Importantly, there were also
discussions about using the evidence of dealings with Taylor to demand that
Firestone permit the steelworkers to play an active role in monitoring labor
standards in Liberia. The union's documents from the time suggest it saw a
greater good in revealing Firestone's history with Taylor — that doing so might
make the company "accountable to the Liberian people and to the
world," as the union stated in the introduction of the 43-page
confidential report detailing their findings.
But the steelworkers union never made its findings public.
Instead, it buried the investigation of Firestone's role in the Liberian civil
war, and the company's actions remained secret for more than 20 years. What
happened to the investigation is not clear. But just two weeks after the union
completed its inquiry, Firestone and the steelworkers met in confidential
negotiations, and soon reached a deal. The union won concessions on pay and
benefits. But any formal notion of improving working conditions in Liberia was abandoned,
and Firestone's dealing with Taylor would not be aired until a ProPublica and
PBS Frontline investigation late last year.
The steelworkers would not comment at all — on their
investigation into Firestone's activities in Liberia, what role the investigation
had played in the negotiations, or why the union had decided to keep the
information secret. In an email, Wayne Ranick, a spokesman for the
steelworkers, said the union could not comment on the matter because key
leaders from that time period, including the union president and general
counsel, are now dead. Other figures involved in the investigation had retired,
he said.
A Firestone official said the company could not shed any
light on the episode. Paul M. Oakley, a spokesman, said the company is now
focusing on returning its rubber operations in Liberia to a relative level of
normalcy in the aftermath of the Ebola outbreak. Company officials, he said in
an email, "are not inclined to spend a lot of time and effort combing
through archives that may or may not have relevant information."
Joe Uehlein, a longtime labor activist who served on the
steelworkers' global campaign strategy team, said Bridgestone Firestone was
well aware of the union's investigation and that it had helped prompt the eventual
deal.
The Liberia investigation "played a big role in
bringing Bridgestone Firestone back to the negotiating table," said
Uehlein, who is now retired.
Last November, ProPublica and PBS Frontline detailed for the
first time the role Firestone played in the early stages of Taylor's bloody
rise to power, a set of findings that in several key respects echoed the
evidence the union's investigators had uncovered decades earlier.
The ProPublica and PBS Frontline story drew on hundreds of
interviews, copies of documents found in court records, once-secret diplomatic
cables, trial transcripts and work done by Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Firestone, whose Liberian rubber plantation was regarded as the
largest in the world, signed a formal deal with Taylor in 1992, agreeing to pay
the warlord millions in exchange for being able to operate in the country
during the early, brutally violent years of its civil war.
Taylor, who later was convicted of war crimes for atrocities
carried out in Sierra Leone, testified under oath during his trial at The Hague
that Firestone's money and cooperation had been critical to his insurrection.
Firestone maintains that it dealt with Taylor only under
threat of violence and in order to preserve its investment and provide for
thousands of its Liberian workers. It insists the company broke no laws, and
that Liberia to this day benefits from its presence in Liberia.
Liberia has long been exploited for its rich natural
resources and its occasional geopolitical usefulness – by its own leaders, as
well as by foreign powers and global businesses. The country's historians have
argued that the interests of the Liberian people have routinely lost out to the
political or business deal of the moment.
To Edwin B. Cisco, news of the union's 1996 decision to make
peace with Firestone and stay quiet about the company's dealings in Liberia
carries a familiar sting. Cisco, the vice president of the union that
represents employees on the company's rubber plantation outside the capital
city of Monrovia, said he wished the steelworkers had made their findings about
Firestone and Taylor public in order to hold the company accountable for its
actions.
Cisco, though, was reluctant to criticize the American union
too harshly, noting that he and his workers have received extensive training
and support from the steelworkers over the last decade. And, as a union boss
himself, he recognized the obligations the steelworkers had to their American
members during the 1996 standoff.
"To be frank, they've recently done immensely well in
providing moral and financial support toward the Liberian workforce, not just
for Firestone workers, but other workers as well," Cisco said. 'They need
to be commended for that."
ProPublica was given access to the union's boxes of Liberian
material by a person who thought the union erred in not releasing the
information at the time to help Liberian workers, and believes that Firestone still
needs to improve its treatment of workers.
The boxes contained a formal investigative report, videos of
scenes from the Firestone plantation, and internal union memos and
correspondence. ProPublica disclosed the nature of the material to the steelworkers
and Firestone in seeking explanations for the events of 1996.
The labor showdown between Firestone and its workers traced
its roots to 1994, when Bridgestone, through its American subsidiary,
Firestone, along with several other foreign tire companies, began demanding
substantial wage and benefit concessions from American rubber workers.
In the summer of 1994, thousands of American rubber workers
walked off the job at Firestone factories in five states. Numerous bargaining
sessions were held, but the environment only worsened. Permanent replacement
workers were hired by Firestone. Unfair labor practice complaints were filed by
both sides.
The protracted strike depleted the treasury of the United
Rubber Workers, which represented the Firestone workers, and in 1995 the union
was forced to merge with the United Steelworkers of America. Once the
steelworkers came on board, leaders assembled a strategy team to identify
potential vulnerabilities for Bridgestone Firestone. Then union president
George Becker later described his game plan to academic researchers.
"The last thing I wanted the company to think about
before [they] went to bed at night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, is all the problems and difficulties we caused
them that day," said Becker. "And the first thing I wanted them to
think of when they woke up is, oh Christ, I've got to go out and face them sons
of bitches again."
Through the spring and summer of 1996, investigators with
the steelworkers and the James Mintz Group, a private investigation firm, began
gathering evidence of Firestone's relationship with Taylor. Investigators
conducted interviews with former U.S. diplomats, academics, journalists and
Liberian government officials, obtaining thousands of pages of documents.
Taylor, a onetime member of the government of Liberian
President Samuel K. Doe, had launched a bid to topple Doe's regime in 1990. He
assembled a rag tag army, one populated by child soldiers who became infamous
for their atrocities and efforts at the ethnic cleansing of certain tribes in
Liberia.
Taylor gained control of much of the country, and declared
himself the de facto president. But he was not formally recognized by the
United States, and the American State Department, among other agencies,
chronicled his human rights abuses.
The documents the union turned up showed Firestone officials
had initially embraced the idea that Taylor and his men were "freedom
fighters," not terrorist rebels. The union's investigators asserted they
had found evidence that Firestone had used humanitarian aid as a means to gain
commercial advantages in Liberia from Taylor's rebels. And the investigators
also obtained a "memorandum of understanding" between Firestone and
Taylor's guerilla organization in which the company agreed to use Taylor's
fighters to safeguard the company's assets on the plantation. The
investigators, in their reports to the union, noted that the company had never
spoken publicly about the agreement with Taylor.
The union also claimed to have obtained credible proof that
a Firestone comptroller had wired $230,000 to a Taylor rebel bank account in
Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 22, 1992, shortly after Taylor's forces launched
Operation Octopus, a surprise attack on Monrovia that plunged the country into
years of additional conflict.
The records show that investigators also purchased video
footage that they intended to circulate as part of their evidence of
Firestone's dealings with Taylor. One clip appears to show a relaxed Taylor and
his rebels on the Firestone rubber plantation in the early days of the 1992
assault on Monrovia.
Another clip shows a member of a West African peacekeeping
force showing journalists evidence of a mass grave of alleged victims of
Taylor's army, a grave located on the Firestone plantation.
By September 1996, the steelworkers had pulled together
their material, concluding in their report that, Bridgestone Firestone's,
"role in the Liberian civil war is a stunning example of a transnational
arrogance in the pursuit of profit, heedless of the human cost of its
actions."
"[Bridgestone Firestone], in its rush to resume
operations of its plantation, ignored the consequences of its collaboration
with Taylor, which led to slaughter of its workers, their families and other
civilians on the plantation," Jerry Fernandez, the union's head of
corporate campaigns and the director of the 10-month investigation of
Firestone, wrote in an Oct. 14, 1996 memo.
The documents reviewed by ProPublica make clear the union
was confident that the material would influence negotiations.
"We are one of the few institutions, outside of the
mass media, that has the resources, contacts and ability to target this
information worldwide," Fernandez wrote in one memo. "Certainly
[Bridgestone Firestone] knows the impact that this would have on sales and
corporate relationships."
"[Bridgestone Firestone] must be convinced that we have
the resources and the will to carry out the above," Fernandez wrote in
another internal memo. "They must understand our resolve on this will be
played out in terms of impacting their markets, reputation and sales as well as
disrupting their normal business relationships."
Fernandez suggested the steelworkers prepare a
"hard-hitting, professionally done, pamphlet" for public
distribution, laying out the evidence of Bridgestone Firestone's complicity in
prolonging the Liberian civil war and urging American consumers and retailers
to stop using rubber products that, "are made a by company that,
literally, has blood on its hands," Fernandez wrote.
Upon publication of the pamphlet, the union would hold a
press conference to announce its findings or, alternatively, leak materials to
a major U.S. newspaper. The campaign, Fernandez suggested, should culminate in
a high level contact between the steelworkers and Bridgestone Firestone
representatives. The Japanese government, he suggested, should also be looped
into the campaign "so they can gauge some of the trade and international
aspects of the actions of one of their biggest corporations."
Fernandez did not respond to requests for comment.
On Oct. 30, 1996, the union's corporate campaign department
prepared a document that briefly explained the key findings from their
investigation into the company's actions in Liberia during the civil war to
present to Vice President Al Gore, who was visiting the Steelworkers
headquarters in Pittsburgh. It is unclear whether Gore ever received the
documents. Efforts to speak to Gore were not successful.
The next day, Oct. 31, the steelworkers entered into secret
talks with Bridgestone Firestone. Soon, a deal was done, and then announced. As
part of the agreement, the company agreed to rehire all workers dismissed
during the strike and to give employees their first across-the-board raises
since 1982 as well as partial back pay. In exchange, the union agreed to end
the strike and its highly visible negative campaign against the company.
On the day of the announcement, Becker, the union president,
called it a "historic day for the union and the entire labor
movement," according to news reports at the time. For Firestone's Liberian
workforce, the new accord would do nothing to help address their own grievances
against the company, which included demands for better wages and back pay.
In September of 1997, less than a month after Taylor became
president of Liberia, Firestone workers launched a strike on the rubber
plantation. Taylor responded in typically harsh fashion, sending in police to
quash the demonstration. According to the Associated Press, the police opened
fire on the protestors and several strikers were killed.
"It was basically a police state during Taylor's
time," said Edwin Cisco, vice president of the union representing
Firestone workers in Liberia. "The government wasn't interested in labor
standards."
Today, Bridgestone remains one of the largest manufacturers
of tires and rubber products in the world. The company has, by and large, been
able to avoid strikes in factories across the U.S. in recent years.
In Liberia, Firestone remains the largest taxpayer and
private employer in Liberia. The company says that it offers some of the best
wages and benefits in the region to the company's employees and their families,
including free housing, subsidized food, paid time off and a pension. The
company says that since 2004, it has injected more than $1 billion into the
Liberian economy.
Firestone also recently revamped the Firestone Natural
Rubber website, a kind of online history of the company that was largely silent
on its role in the Liberian civil war. The site now includes a detailed defense
of the company's actions.
In May 2013, the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of
Liberia and management signed to a three-year collective bargaining agreement.
The contract expires at the end of the year.
Cisco commended Firestone management for addressing some of
workers' concerns regarding wages, benefits, and living conditions.
Still, Cisco said, many Firestone rubber workers to this day
find themselves forced to enlist family members to complete their daily
workload on the plantation. He said union leaders intend to make that one of
the issues in the next round of negotiations.
"These workers have to pay others who assist them out
of their own pockets," Cisco said. "Firestone should be paying for
that, not the workers out of their own pockets."
Help us investigate: If you have experience with or
information about the United Steelworkers of America campaign or the Firestone
companies dealings in Liberia, email t.christian.miller@propublica.org.
