All are welcome to join this protest.
Unions are protesting at the Rio Tinto shareholders’ AGM in London on Thursday 19 April against the four month-long lockout of 780 union members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Alma, Quebec, Canada.
WHAT: Protest at Rio Tinto AGM
TIME: 10 am
DATE: Thursday 19 April
PLACE: The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, London SW1P 3EE
The protestors will bring to shareholders’ attention Rio Tinto’s unethical and illegal actions in Canada and the damage this is doing to the company’s reputation and its sponsorship of the London Olympics.
Rio Tinto, one of the sponsors of the 2012 London Olympics, is providing 99 percent of the metal for minting the London Olympic medals, tarnishing them with the company’s reprehensible labour practices.
The locked-out members of USW are supported in this action by the UK union Unite, the London Mining Network and three global union federations: InternationalFederation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
This action is part of a sustained global campaign of ICEM and IMF against Rio Tinto demanding the company clean up its act towards workers. On the same day, miners’ unions from around the world attending an ICEM mining conference will be making the same demands at a protest at the Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney at 13:00 (EST) on Thursday 19 April (vision available on request).
Contacts:
ICEM communications, Tom Grinter
Mobile: +41 79 693 44 99 Email: tom.grinter@icem.org
IMF communications, Cherisse Fredricks
Mobile: +41 78 866 94 45 Email: cfredricks@imfmetal.org
ITF press officer, Sam Dawson.
Direct line: + 44 (0)20 7940 9260 Email: dawson_sam@itf.org.uk
USW assistant director, Quebec, Guy Farrell
Mobile: +1 514 949 5139 Email: gfarrell@usw.ca
NOTES TO EDITORS:
For more information about the illegal lockout in Canada go to: http://www.justiceforriotintoworkers.ca/
The International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) represents the interests of 25 million metalworkers in over 100 countries around the world with a head office in Geneva.
The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) is a Geneva-based Global Union Federation representing 20 million workers through 355 trade unions in 115 countries.
The IMF, ICEM and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) will merge to form IndustriALL Global Union at a founding Congress in June 2012.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) represents 690 unions representing over 4.5 million transport workers in 153 countries and is headquartered in London.
The United Steelworkers (USW), affiliated to IMF and ICEM, is the largest private sector union in both Canada and North America with more than 225,000 members in Canada and more than 800,000 members continent-wide.