Bush will end his trip by spending a
few hours in Liberia. There he will try to cast
himself in the role of the compassionate conservative who successfully
intervened in Liberia’s long
civil war, thus heralding in a shining new democracy led by Africa’s first democratically-elected female president. In
his February 14 press conference, Bush celebrated increasing private capital
flows to sub-Saharan Africa. But the workers
supposedly benefiting from foreign private investment in Liberia
might have a different perspective.

For
example, Liberia’s largest investor and
employer, Firestone, has been exploiting workers on its rubber

plantation for
over 80 years. The company has been the focus of an international campaign and a
lawsuit in U.S. courts because of its use of
child labor and abuse of workers’ rights. Affidavits collected from child
laborers on the plantation recently filed in the lawsuit show clearly how
foreign direct investment and trade often do not benefit workers.

Sixteen-year-old James Roe IV is a
typical example of a Firestone worker. He began working at the age of nine on
the plantation, cleaning cups of latex and cutting grass with a machete. At the
age of 11, he began collecting latex and applying toxic chemicals to trees
without any protective gear. When he was nine, James was injured at work when he
cut his foot with a machete. But he could not get proper health care because he
lacked an ID card required by the company to access the Firestone Hospital. Since he works from 4 a.m. to 3
p.m., he has been unable to attend school and has only achieved a second-grade
education. James was forced to work to help his father meet his daily production
quota because if he failed to meet the quota, his family would not be able to
afford food.

Firestone workers have seen few
benefits from their labor and are stuck in a generational cycle of poverty. On
the other hand, Firestone has built a multi-million dollar tire business using
Liberia’s rubber. Firestone’s
investment in Liberia is a
textbook case of “exploitation that seeks only to buy up [Africa’s] resources.”

Bush will also be stopping in
Ghana to meet with entrepreneurs who
benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Since 2001,
international monitoring organizations have scrutinized Ghana and Cote
d’Ivoire for the widespread use of abusive child labor,
including forced labor and trafficking, on cocoa farms that supply the main
ingredient for the chocolate bars sold by major U.S.
corporations like Mars, Hershey, and Nestle. These chocolate companies have
dragged their feet for years and refuse to acknowledge that the low prices they
pay West African farmers for their cocoa beans create a downward pressure on
wages and labor standards. A recent Global Witness report
also found that the cocoa industry has helped to finance conflict in Cote
d’Ivoire. Instead of using some of his time in
Ghana to highlight the injustice
facing cocoa farmers, Bush will be using his platform to further promote trade
and investment policies that do not adequately protect labor rights.

AGOA provides clear benefits,
however, for corporate investors. For example, a textile factory owned by the
company Ramatex chose to take advantage of AGOA by locating in an Export
Processing Zone (EPZ) in Namibia. Incentives offered to
Ramatex for setting up shop in the EPZ include: an exemption from import duties,
an exemption from sales tax, a guarantee of free repatriation of capital and
profits, access to streamlined regulatory services, a refund of up to 75% of
costs of pre-approved training of Namibian citizens, provision of dirt-cheap
factory facilities, and of course, weak labor regulations. Ramatex is then able
to export its products duty free to the United States through AGOA.

Meanwhile, AGOA has led to an
increase in the low-skilled garment sector in Africa where workers are often abused. For example, a
recent report by SOMO titled Footloose Investors found
that in Swaziland, “violations documented at
Asian-owned factories in the last 6 years include forced overtime, verbal abuse,
sexual intimidation, unhealthy and unsafe conditions, unreasonable production
targets and anti-union repression.” These violations of workers’ rights do not
represent the commitment to fair trade that Bush promoted at his February 14
press conference.

Bush’s talk about “a new era of
development” looks like more of the same – abuse of workers and extraction of
Africa’s resources for the benefit of wealthy
corporations. While the Bush administration
clearly embraces both paternalism
and the exploitation of Africa’s workers and
resources, there is another option. We can stand in solidarity with African
workers by actively supporting their organizing efforts – from the Firestone
rubber plantation to Group 4 Securicor workers in Malawi to cut-flower workers in Kenya.
U.S.-based corporations should be publicly accountable for their abuses in
Africa, and U.S. trade policies should provide
strong protections for workers. U.S. citizens, meanwhile, should
participate in corporate campaigns and scrutinize their own investments and
purchasing decisions.