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USA Rio Tinto miners bring fight for jobs and families to London
15/04/10
Miners locked out of Rio Tinto’s site in Boron, California for refusing to give in to demands by the company that could threaten their ability to work and support their families are highlighting their plight as shareholders attend the global mining giant’s AGM in London today (Thursday).
Almost 600 workers, all members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30 branch, were refused entry to the Borax mine and processing plant owned by Anglo-Australian corporation Rio Tinto when they showed up for work on 31st January. This followed their refusal to accept the imposition of a new contract that threatened to convert good jobs into temporary, part-time or outsourced positions.
Rio Tinto has used a firm with a notorious reputation for union busting, J.R. Gettier of Delaware, to bus replacement workers across picket lines to mine and process borates. Borates are used in numerous products, including detergents, glass, building materials and as an ingredient in chemicals.
In negotiations Rio Tinto sought to agree to a new contract which would give the company the right to award jobs to outside contractors; require miners in dangerous occupations to work overtime; and require the workers’ themselves to pay for the company’s legal penalties, fines and damages if the company violates state and federal labor laws.
Dave Irish, one of the locked out miners protesting at the AGM, said:
“After working the mine for generations, families are being jeopardized by a newly-proposed system of insecure working patterns and conditions, and dog eat dog struggles for jobs I believe. Rio Tinto wants to starve us into submission, forcing us to accept a contract that we fear will destroy decent, family-supporting jobs. When we tried to use our legitimate negotiation rights, we were locked out of our own jobs and replaced by union busters. We’ve been forced to survive on unemployment insurance and handouts ever since. We are determined to fight for our jobs, our families and our community.
“Having us back in our jobs is in the best interests of shareholders, too. As experienced workers, we are much better able to guarantee the quality and quantity of production to meet customer demand. We hope the shareholders will listen to us and demand that the corporation ends the lock out and negotiates a fair contract with us so that we can get back to work.”
Ray Familathe, International Vice-President of the ILWU, said: “We have come to London to highlight the courage of ordinary workers and their families in standing up to a powerful global business. The Boron miners simply want to work hard and to be treated fairly and with respect. This seems the latest example of appalling behaviour by Rio Tinto around the world in terms of the way it treats its workers, communities and the environment. This is not just a problem for the small community in Boron, California which relies on the mine for its survival but a global threat when a corporate giant such as Rio Tinto gets away with riding roughshod over its employees.”
The action against Rio Tinto is a joint initiative of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which is based in the UK; the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Union; and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF). It is supported by a range of other organisations, including the London Mining Network.
ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said: “The lockout is the lowest reaction of the employer to a workforce that strives for dialogue. We support the fight of the miners and applaud their strength and courage and support the ILWU’s call for an end to the lockout and proper negotiation to reach agreement on staff contracts.”
Four Rio Tinto executives were found guilty of bribery and commercial espionage by a Chinese court at the end of March. This follows a case against the company by residents of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea accusing it of complicity in human rights abuses by the operation of its copper-gold mine. Rio Tinto has also been alleged to have colluded with the Apartheid government in South Africa and some of the world’s most despotic regimes, including Suharto’s in Indonesia.
Workers from South Africa, Australia, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, Europe and Papua New Guinea have expressed solidarity with the locked out Boron miners in the USA.
Ends
For further information, please contact:
· about the Boron lockout – Craig Merrilees, Communications Director, ILWU, on +1 (0) 415 775 0533 ext 113 or craig@ilwu.org
· about the AGM protest or to interview Dave Irish or Ray Familathe – Dee Sullivan on 020 8613 8071, 07949 010639 or dee@greenshootsconsultants.co.uk
Notes for editors
1 Ray Familathe and Dave Irish are available for interview from Wednesday to Friday this week.
2. Supporters of the Boron families will demonstrate outside Rio Tinto’s AGM from 10-11am on Thursday, 15 April. The AGM is being held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London SW1.
3. There will be coordinated pickets on 16 April at the British Consulates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Vancouver in support of the Boron families.
4. There will also be protest action on 22 April at the Rio Tinto AGM in Melbourne, organised by the Maritime Union of Australia.
5. The fact sheet below gives background on Rio Tinto, the Boron mine and the lockout.
6. The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is an international trade union federation of transport workers' unions. 751 unions representing over 4,600,000 transport workers in 154 countries are members of the ITF. It is one of several Global Federation Unions allied with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). For more information on ITF visit: www.itfglobal.org
About Rio Tinto
§ Rio Tinto is a multi-billion dollar global corporation that mines and processes aluminum, coal, copper, diamonds, gold, iron ore and uranium, as well as industrial minerals including borates, titanium dioxide, salt and talc.
§ The company is based in London and Melbourne, Australia and traded on the London, Sydney and New York Stock Exchanges.
§ Rio Tinto is the 3rd largest mining company in the world, operating in more than 50 countries on six continents, with the majority of production occurring in Australia and North America.
§ In 2009, Rio Tinto reported net earnings of almost $5 billion on revenues of $44 billion.
About Rio Tinto’s Borate Business
§ Rio Tinto’s borate mining and processing business is part of its Diamonds & Minerals product group, which reported net earnings of $800 million in 2009.
§ The company’s borate business consists primarily of its mine – the largest borate deposit in the world – and processing plant in Boron, California, USA. Rio Tinto also operates a small borate mine and processing plant in Argentina, as well as plants and/or distribution facilities in Wilmington, California, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
§ Rio Tinto supplies nearly half the world’s demand for refined borates. Together with Etimine of Turkey, Rio Tinto enjoys a virtual monopoly on the global borate market.
§ Borates are industrial minerals with a wide variety of uses, including glass, ceramics, fertilizer, detergents and wood treatments.
§ Although Rio Tinto often tells reporters that it has lost 25% of its share of the borate market in order to garner sympathy and justify its attack on families in Boron, the company’s claim has never been independently substantiated. Rio Tinto does not report publicly on the financial performance of its borate business. Like most companies, Rio Tinto has been temporarily impacted by the economic recession, but the outlook for Rio Tinto’s future is bright and already improving. In his “State of Business” address in August 2009, Rio Tinto Vice President Chris Robison said, “the financial position of the company is very strong.” Independent experts predict demand for borates will increase significantly in 2010, mainly due to the growth in Chinese manufacturing. China is Rio Tinto’s largest destination market.
About the Mine in Boron
§ Located in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the Boron mine is the largest open-pit mine in California.
§ The mine has been operating since borates were first discovered in Boron in 1925. The facility was acquired by Rio Tinto in 1967.
§ The mine serves Rio Tinto’s borate customers in almost 100 countries around the world.
§ There are about 570 hourly workers at the mine, many of whom have worked their entire lives at the facility. Some employees have more than 40 years of experience there.
About the Lockout
§ On January 31, 2010, Rio Tinto locked out about 570 hourly workers from the Borax mine.
§ Employees had refused to accept Rio Tinto’s concessionary contract ultimatum. Their demands included allowing the company to convert good jobs into temporary, part-time or outsourced positions.
§ Since the lockout, Rio Tinto has replaced its experienced, skilled workforce with workers from its other facilities and with contract workers supplied by Gettier Security, a Wilmington, DE-based company that specializes in providing workers to firms engaged in strikes or lockouts.
§ The locked out families are relying on unemployment insurance and other forms of public assistance to help feed their children and pay mortgages.
For more information about Rio Tinto and the Lockout in Boron, or to learn how you can help the miners and their families, please contact Craig Merrilees, Communications Director, ILWU on +1 (0) 415 775 0533 ext 113.
ENDS
Email: mail@itf.org.uk
Web: www.itfglobal.org
صفحات ذات علاقة:
Solidarity with locked out Rio Tinto workers
Solidarity with locked out Rio Tinto workers, Boron, USA
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