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Canadian Rio Tinto lockout nears one month

Richard — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:11:40 +0000

On January 1, 2012, Rio Tinto’s aluminium subsidiary Alcan locked out 780 members of United Steelworkers at its smelter and refinery in Alma, Québec. The company refuses to negotiate limits on contract work.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11463&l=1.

See also Rio Tinto’s lockout of Alma workers looks set to drag on,

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page504?oid=144916&sn=Detail&pid=92730.

Vedanta set to grab further Indian resources – twice over

Richard — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:50:11 +0000

Vedanta’s contract with Scottish firm, Cairn Energy, to take a controlling stake in India’s most promising new oil field, still isn’t a “done deal”. But the acquisition has now moved one step closer to completion with backing from the Oil ministry – despite failures to address the Home Affairs ministry’s misgivings about Vedanta’s highly dubious human rights, environmental and governance record. Just as this particular “coup” looks like being ratified by the central government, the company’s principal subsidiary, Sterlite Industries, is proposing to purchase what it doesn’t yet own of BALCO. BALCO is Vedanta’s principal integrated aluminium subsidiary, notorious for its appalling record in safeguarding workers’ health and safety.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11428&l=1.

Rio Tinto Initiates Lockout in Canada

Richard — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:26:07 +0000

Rio Tinto Alcan, an aluminium-production unit of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, locked out about 800 union workers at a Quebec smelter.

See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577136533843111036.html.

Proud Indonesian Miners’ End Strike at Grasberg

Richard — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:34:43 +0000

An agreement was signed in Jakarta on 14 December between PT Freeport Indonesia Workers’ Union (SP KEP SPSI) and management of the world’s largest gold and second largest copper mining complex – Grasberg in Papua province – that will end a 94-day strike on Saturday, 17 December.

The strike pitted a low-wage but determined and enlightened workforce against a global extractive resource company, US-based Freeport-McMoRan that has Grasberg at top of its massive revenue stream. (London-listed Rio Tinto has been indispensable to Freeport, acting as its critical 40% joint-venture partner at the mine for over a decade.)

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11374&l=1.

Sick miners want Anglo American to pay up

Richard — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:33:21 +0000

Mongezi Mponco left his village of grassland hills as one of hundreds of thousands of healthy young black men who poured into the deep underground of South Africa’s gold mines.

The 54-year-old continued working when diagnosed with early incurable lung disease until he was fired after 30 years, in a story traced on thumb-worn papers kept in his home off a rutted dirt road in the Eastern Cape.

“Thank you for your loyal service and all the best,” advised the termination letter to the father of six who has certified silicosis scarring of the lungs.

But the best has not materialised for Mponco and hundreds of other former mineworkers who now want mining giant Anglo American to pay up for exposing them to dangerous dust levels.

The London-listed firm’s South African subsidiary is being sued on two continents in cases that could run into millions of rands in damages.

See http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-11-sick-miners-want-anglo-american-to-pay-up.

Xstrata under fire on three continents

Richard — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:31:10 +0000

Protesters storm Xstrata’s London HQ

Protesters’ account and comments at N30, corporate greed, Xstrata and the right to protest, http://occupylsx.org/?p=1755.

Rio rough rides (again) into Canadian uranium

Richard — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:16:52 +0000

Rio Tinto is set to “rough ride” over a promising eponymous uranium deposit in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

This will mark a re-entry by the UK mining giant into uranium exploitation in Canada – the world’s second largest source of the nuclear fuel (after Kazahstan). In 2000, Rio Tinto sold its majority-owned Rio Algom subsidiary to Billiton (which later merged with BHP to become BHP-Billiton). In doing so, it bequeathed a massive legacy of problems associated with past uranium mining. These problems relate particularly to the absence of adequate tailings containment at its mines in the Elliot Lake region of Ontario, as well as on Hopi and Navajo territory in the US. In addition, there remain long-standing claims that the company caused radiation-induced disease among its Elliot Lake workforce. In fact it was only last month (in November 2011) that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) presented a report, allegedly withheld for 5 years, on (mis)-management of Rio Algom’s Elliot Lake uranium tailings facilities. But now, Rio Algom’s former parent company is about to return to the country whose rivers and lands it so grossly polluted and debased for almost half a century.

[Comment by Nostromo Research, London 2 December 2011]

See Rio Tinto snatches up majority of Hathor shares at http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page72103?oid=140843&sn=Detail&pid=102055

In Indonesia, Anger Against Mining Giant Grows

Richard — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:38:10 +0000

A foreign mining company, protected by hundreds of soldiers, extracts precious resources from a remote tropical forest. The mining enrages indigenous tribes, who resist. It may sound like a movie script, but it is in fact the story of the world’s largest gold mine, located high in the mountains of Indonesia’s Papua province and owned by Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining conglomerate.

(The Grasberg mine’s internal “security” is in the hands of PT Securicor Indonesia – part of G4S, the world’s most extended network of its kind that is based in the English county of West Sussex. London-listed Rio Tinto has also been indispensable to Freeport, acting as its critical 40% joint-venture partner at the mine for over a decade.)

See http://www.npr.org/2011/11/16/142346962/in-indonesia-anger-against-mining-giant-grows.

Workers at the mine have announced that the strike will be extended till 15 December. Negotiations are still ongoing.The union representing the Freeport workers, PUK SP – KEP SPSI, is asking for financial donations to support the strikers.

See http://aawl.org.au/content/donate-freeport-strikers.

See also: Twenty-two years of top-down resource exploitation in Papua
Among the companies benefiting from Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua is Britain’s Rio Tinto. See article from LMN member group Down to Earth’s November newsletter: http://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/story/twenty-two-years-top-down-resource-exploitation-papua.

South Africa’s gold miners denied access to silicosis checks

Richard — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:33:21 +0000

A lawyer for hundreds of former South African gold miners has accused their ex-employers of failing to provide access to regular check-ups for silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling dust.

Richard Meeran of London law firm Leigh Day said thousands of miners in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province had missed out on compensation because they had been denied access to free, two-yearly tests, in contravention of South African laws protecting the rights of ex-miners.

He is already representing 700 silicosis-afflicted miners, most of them from the Eastern Cape, in a suit in London seeking “billions of rand” in compensation from London-based mining giant Anglo American.

Anglo American South Africa, the wholly owned entity being sued by the miners, was one of the world’s largest gold miners through much of the 20th century.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11318.

More “accidents” at Vedanta’s Indian copper smelter

Richard — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:31:52 +0000

It should have been shut down nearly a year ago. But, despite an order by the Madras High Court, UK-listed Vedanta Resources has been allowed to continue operating its highly-polluting Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) copper smelter in Tamil Nadu.

On 17 August 2011, according to information coming from within the plant, a 45-minute poisonous gas leak partially-suffocated some of its workforce.

Now – less than four months later (14 November 2011) - a contract worker has died, and another was seriously injured, after being sucked into a duct that should itself have been closed down.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11313.

Papua: Freeport-Rio Tinto labour battles have no end in sight

Richard — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:20:07 +0000

Indonesian Police accused of accepting bribes

There’s no end in sight to the world’s biggest wages-related mining strike, as Freeport workers continue blockading (West) Papua’s Grasberg operations, following Indonesian police attacks that have already claimed several lives.

Meanwhile, the police have admitted receiving money from the company to perform “security” duties: funds one spokesperson described as “lunch money” but the country’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) calls “bribery”. Paying the police to assist in breaking lawful industrial action – and committing grave human rights abuses as a result – clearly runs counter to Indonesian law.

According to a report in Indonesian Tribunnews (cited by Mineweb on 7 November 2011), Indonesia’s National Police has now agreed to allow the KPK to investigate these allegations. A police spokesman recently admitted the force had received US$14 million last year from the company and that, among the alleged beneficiaries, were 356 police officers who each received US$130 per month.

The Grasberg mine’s internal “security” is in the hands of PT Securicor Indonesia – part of G4S, the world’s most extended network of its kind that is based in the English county of West Sussex.

London-listed Rio Tinto has also been indispensable to Freeport, acting as its critical 40% joint-venture partner at the mine for over a decade.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11285.

See also Indonesian National Police to permit Freeport security funding probe, http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page36?oid=138986&sn=Detail&pid=92730.

“We”ve seen the future – and it’s worker-free!” – Rio Tinto

Richard — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:06:10 +0000

Rio Tinto is replacing workers with driverless trucks at its Pilbara iron ore operations in Western Australia.

See http://www.mining.com/2011/11/02/rio-tinto-boosts-driverless-truck-fleet-for-use-in-pilbara/.

LMN member group Partizans notes that in the past, Rio Tinto seemed to favour eliminating workers by having them shot: Sir Auckland Geddes, Rio Tinto chairman, said to shareholders at its 1937 London AGM: “Since the [Rio Tinto] mining region [in Andalusia] was occupied by General Franco’s forces, there have been no further labour problems…Miners found guilty of troublemaking are court-martialled and shot” [“Plunder!”, published byPartizans, London and Christchurch, 1991, page 8].

Anglo American may pull investments, jobs

Richard — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:01:31 +0000

In a move intended to pressure the Australian federal government to revise the proposed carbon tax, global miner Anglo American has threatened to withhold over $15 billion in coal mining investments and curtail 3,200 new jobs in Australia, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.

See http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Anglo-American-may-pull-investments-jobs-pd20111101-N7Q4J?opendocument&src=rss.

Papuans struggle – and die – as mining conflict intensifies

Richard — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:53:59 +0000

There’s no sign that conflicts between trade unionists and the management of the world’s largest gold-copper mine are close to resolution. On the contrary, within recent days several more people have been murdered in Freeport-Rio Tinto’s huge Grasberg lease area in Papua (West Papua). Moreover, one Indigenous delegate was shot dead by police, and 300 arrested, during a Congress held last week by the Papuan Peoples Congress.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/11262.

See also They ask for wages, not bullets, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/24/they-ask-wages-not-bullets.html
Striking Freeport miners shot dead in Indonesian strike, http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11236
and Norway’s ‘ethical divestment’ from Rio Tinto, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201182913613680545.html.

BHP Billiton AGM protest, London, 20 October 2011

Richard — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:13:14 +0000

photo: Jane Calliste

Protesters from the Occupy LSX demonstration marched from St Paul’s cathedral to join anti-nuclear campaigners, supporters of London Mining Network member group Colombia Solidarity Campaign and others outside yesterday’s BHP Billiton AGM. See short video at http://vimeo.com/31028821 and report at http://london.indymedia.org/articles/10589.

Inside the AGM, Julio Gomez from Colombia confronted the company over its activities in Colombia. Julio is President of the Federation of Communities Affected and Displaced by Mining Exploitation in La Guajira (FECODEMIGUA).

This Federation was constituted because of the disappearance of communities, the loss of lands and the violations of people’s rights over the last thirty years by the Cerrejon mine, one-third owned by BHP Billiton.

Julio said:

“The benefits obtained in this part of the world from coal mining in La Guajira, such as electrical power and shareholders’ dividends, are stained with blood. This is because of
· the displacement and uprooting of communities neighbouring the Cerrejon mine;
· the humiliations, threats, and persecution suffered by leaders of these communities;
· the destruction and pollution of nature;
· and the exploitation of mine workers.

Many of you may be aware of the forced eviction of the community of Tabaco ten years ago, of the situation of other communities and that of the workers. What you are probably not aware of is that many other communities were destroyed completely before BHP Billiton bought into the mine – among them indigenous and Afro-descendant communities including Manantial, Palmarito, El Descanso, Caracolí, Sarahita and others located along the railway line between the mine and the port.

BHP Billiton has not accepted responsibility for the disappearance of these communities, but it ought to do so, because it has acquired the rights and benefits generated by this business and with it the responsibility for past and future activities.

It is unfair that while you are obtaining massive profits, we suffer from high rates of respiratory illness and cancers, malnutrition, high infant mortality, violations of our rights, land rendered infertile, loss of livelihood, and descent into poverty…

Meanwhile, Cerrejon Coal is carrying out publicity campaigns trying to show how generous it is. It uses the slogan ‘responsible mining’, which is completely inaccurate. Cerrejon seems to spend substantial amounts of money on publicity about social responsibility, but not enough on social responsibility itself.

My question, therefore, is, how long do we, the communities affected by Cerrejon, have to wait for BHP Billiton to take action and demand that its subsidiary Cerrejon Coal act with justice, respect and equity towards us, and that it have an effective and honest department of social responsibility?”

BHP Billiton Chairman Jac Nasser replied that some of the issues raised by Julio were of long standing but that others were new and alarming. He said that not everything the company did was perfect but that they had good intent and that he believed the company was making good progress and contributing to the local and national economy through taxes and social investment. He said that he would welcome the opportunity to sit down with Julio to discuss the issues with Julio in more detail. (Julio took him at his word, conversing with him after the AGM – though they were unable to ‘sit down’ for lack of available seating.) Julio made clear that if Cerrejon Coal’s activities were so beneficial to the communities in La Guajira, he would not have come from Colombia to raise these issues at the company’s AGM.

Representatives of LMN member groups PIPLinks and Down to Earth challenged the Board about BHP Billiton’s plans for uranium mining at Yeelirrie in Western Australia, the massive expansion of its enormous Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia, its plans for coal mining in forested areas of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and its refusal to accept Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior Informed Consent under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Statements were presented from Aboriginal Elders in the areas of BHP Billiton’s uranium projects in Australia.

19th October 2011: To BHP Billiton’s London Shareholders and the Parliament of Great Britain

In 2010 and again in 2011 we instructed our representative body- the Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS) Ltd that we, the Traditional Custodians of Yeelirrie, are strongly opposed to the development of uranium mine at Yeelirrie in Western Australia. Yeelirrie is currently under occupation from BHP Billiton who is pursuing a uranium mine application with the State of WA.
After extensive discussion at the meetings between the Traditional Custodians and the CDNTS in 2010 and 2011 the group arrived at the decision to oppose the development. In 2011 this decision was unanimous among the group.

Traditional Custodians have strong concerns about the safety and management of radiation and the effects that mining Yeelirrie will have on the well-being of our country and our people.

The place Yeelirrie, in our language, means the place of death. We are custodians of that place; it is our responsibility to keep that poison, the uranium, where it is. If that uranium leaves our country and does damage to someone, that’s our responsibility and we take that very seriously.

We have been to the BHP Billiton Annual General Meetings two years in a row, in Brisbane and in Perth and will go again this year to Melbourne to tell the company and their shareholders that we don’t want uranium mining on our country. Despite our position they continue to pursue the uranium mine and avoid engaging with us. We have been very clear about our position.

Kado Muir – Chairperson of the West Australia Nuclear Free Alliance and Ngalia Traditional Custodian
Richard Evans – Koara Tribal elder

I, Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna elder from Lake Eyre, make the following statement to the BHP Billiton AGM and shareholders:

We never did want Olympic Dam to develop in the first place under Western Mining.
The same thing applies to you. We don’t want you to continue with Olympic Dam.
In fact we want you to shut up shop immediately and leave that area.
By your influence, the State and Federal Governments have sold us out.

For over 40,000 years we’ve been able to maintain and look after our country.
Under the ancient culture and law, digging up and destroying sacred sites is prohibited.
The desert to us is just as important as the cities.

Because of the lack of consultation and understanding in the first place, and because of greed and selfishness, it seems easy to you people who are foreign to this land to destroy the ancient structure.

We have no alternative but to continue to expose you as wrongdoers. It is a criminal offence that you people are committing, and you are already branded as criminals.

We are telling you to reverse the decision to expand and make an open cut mine, and cease this operation at Olympic Dam immediately.

Find a good use to spend your money. You will feel better as human beings.
I hope this message gets through to you.

I am inviting you to come and talk to reach a better understanding of the ancient dreamtime structure.

Kevin Buzzacott. 19 October 2011

Meanwhile, there were protests in Adelaide, South Australia…

MEDIA RELEASE, 20 October 2011

A giant radioactive waste barrel has just been erected on Grenfell Street opposite City Cross Arcade to mark the introduction of the new Roxby Downs Indenture Agreement into SA Parliament.

“This barrel can be used to conceptualise the volume of radioactive tailings that will leak from the tailings dams of the newly approved Olympic Dam open-pit uranium mine” said Riley Ashton of Protest BHP Adelaide.

“This leak will contaminate the aquifer with radioactive isotopes and heavy metals, and threaten groundwater dependent ecosystems for thousands of years” said Mr Ashton.

“BHP Billiton’s Environmental Impact Statement states that the maximum rate of seepage from the radioactive tailings dams in the first decade will be 8 million litres per day. That’s over 90 of these barrels each day, amounting to over 33 000 of these barrels each year (approximately 2922 million litres per year), and equivalent to more than 7.5 barrels every 2 hours,” said Mr Ashton.

“At 40 years of operation, the new tailings dams at Olympic Dam will have leaked well over 47.5 billion litres of radioactive waste into the underlying rock and groundwater, approximately 540 000 of these barrels” said Mr Ashton.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” continued Mr Ashton.

This coincides with a community rally at BHP Billiton’s Adelaide office, protesting the recent approval of the Olympic Dam Mine.

For comment, more information or photos contact:
Riley Ashton: 0421 593 902
Nectaria Calan: 0432 388 665

and in Perth, Western Australia…

Peaceful protest calls for an end to big exemptions for the Big Australian

More than 40 people from all over Perth gathered at BHP Billiton’s city offices on 20 October to protest the proposed Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion and remind the mining giant that there is no social license to mine uranium in Western Australia.

Despite BHP sending dire warnings of protestor violence to its Perth-based employees, the event took on a carnival atmosphere with a cheeky BHPeep Show featuring doubles of BHP CEO Marius Kloppers and Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke.

Part of a national day of action timed to coincide with the BHP Billiton Annual General Meeting being held in London, the protest followed Minister Burke approving the expansion of South Australia’s Olympic Dam uranium mine last week. The multinational mining giant is also pursuing a uranium mine at Yeelirrie, 70kms South West of Wiluna in central WA.

See http://ccwa.org.au/media/peaceful-protest-calls-end-big-exemptions-big-australian.

Greens tying up Olympic Dam with new parliamentary inquiry, $30 billion project faces delays

News reports from Australia say BHP Billiton may face delays in getting approvals for its $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion, as Greens and other minor parties holding the balance of power in the South Australian Parliament push for an inquiry into the project. See http://www.mining.com/2011/10/18/greens-tying-up-olympic-dam-with-new-parliamentary-inquiry-30-billion-project-faces-delays/.

Back in Britain, Julio Gomez accompanied his visit to the BHP Billiton AGM with meetings with Coal Action Scotland in Edinburgh, UNISON North East in Newcastle, Latin American community groups, workers’ organisations and solidarity campaigns in London and the South East, officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Peers and Members of Parliament, and the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. He spoke at a well-attended public meeting in the Houses of Parliament the evening before the BHP Billiton AGM. His visit to Britain was organised by London Mining Network and the Colombia Solidarity Campaign.