By Alphonso Toweh

MONROVIA - Liberia has given a 90-day ultimatum to the management of Bridgestone's Corp's Firestone rubber plantation to improve its workers' living conditions, Labor Minister Kofi Wood said.

"We have asked the Firestone management to improve the living conditions of the workers," Wood told Reuters late on Monday. "We have given them 90 days."

He did not say what the government would do if Firestone failed to meet the deadline. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in November against Firestone, alleging conditions at the plantation amounted to virtual slavery.

The tire maker denies the allegations.

In a country where most people live on less than a dollar a day, Firestone's $3.19 daily wage is above average.

The Japanese-owned tire maker is one of few international industrial employers in Liberia. The West African state is struggling to get back on its feet after more than a decade of brutal civil war, which ended in 2003.

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.

"The management of Firestone needs to improve the housing facilities to meet moderns standard," Wood said. "This area is deplorable."

The government has received a 10-year plan from Firestone aimed at improving conditions at the plantation .

"The 10-year plan is okay, but we would like for that plan to be reduced to five years," Wood said. "You do not need to wait for 10 years before improving the housing and wage conditions for them.

"We...want them to start with the 90 days' work."