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Temporary Truce Reached in Sierra Leone Mine Strike, Quelling Violence Against Contract Workers

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25 April, 2012

The ICEM affiliate in Sierra Leone, United Mineworkers’ Union (UMU), stepped in yesterday to negotiate a partial resolve to a strike by casual workers employed by subcontractors of iron ore producer African Minerals Ltd. That strike, lasting from 17 April to 23 April, was marked by police violence in the north-central Sierra Leone town of Bumbuna that saw one woman killed by police gun fire and at least nine others seriously injured.

The agreement reached last night near Bumbuna between the UMU, African Minerals and several Sierra Leone ministry officials – including ministers of Labour and Social Security and Mineral Resources – produced several remedial measures to last week’s spontaneous strike by some 500 casual workers.

UMU General Secretary Ezekiel Dyke said he hoped his union’s intervention would move the London-based mining company that relies almost totally on subcontractors to finalise a collective agreement with the UMU. African Minerals earlier this year began production at Sierra Leone’s Tonkolili project near Bumbana, containing the world’s largest reported magnetite iron ore reserves of 12.8 billion tonnes.

  

Ezekiel Dyke

UMU has been in talks with African Minerals since last year over a collective agreement. Last week’s strike by nearly half of the workforce of 1,000 casual workers was caused by delayed salaries to some, meagre pay to all, lack of medical care, and on-going lack of union representation as production ramped up and rail shipments to the capital of Freeport began.

On the strike’s second day, 18 April, violence ensued when Bumbuna towns-people joined strikers and blocked entrances to the Tonkolili project. Riot police then stormed protestors in the village, firing live ammunition, wielding batons and shooting tear gas directly at strikers and their community supporters. The police action created a stampede that tore through a marketplace in Bumbuna.

Killed instantly was Musu Conteh, a woman in her 30s employed by the catering firm ATS. Some nine others were seriously injured by bullet wounds to their legs, said the UMU’s Ezekiel Dyke, while perhaps 20 others were treated in an ill-equipped medical centre in nearby Makena for gas inhalation and police-inflicted wounds.

Dyke said upwards of 40% of the casual workers employed throughout the Tonkolili project are women.

The remedial agreement reached last night will see African Minerals immediately pay owed back salaries of up to two months for casual workers who work on the mine’s rail link. It establishes a framework whereby casual workers will become permanent employees of either African Minerals or their subcontracting firm after three months of employment, or in some cases extended to six months.

It also mandates that African Minerals provide a full review of salaries, work conditions and job categories within two weeks. The primary employer also agreed to investigate and pay compensation to the deceased woman’s family within two weeks, as well as provide compensation to injured victims in that same period. African Minerals also agreed to pay compensation to market vendors – mostly women – for their losses from the 18 April violence.

There will also be a thorough investigation of the unchecked police force used last week.

Major contractors for African Minerals in Sierra Leone include the company BCM, doing production work, while UK-based engineering and construction companies Dawnus and Hawk also employ casual workers, as does South African-based Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO). There are scores of Sierra Leone-based companies that reportedly also exploit workers.

Between the latter half of 2011 and last month, China-based Shandong Iron & Steel Group Co. Ltd. of state-owned Shandong Province Asset Commission purchased 25% of the Tonkolili project from African Minerals, along with the same percentage of related rail and port subsidiary companies for nearly US$1.5 billion.

UMU currently has collective agreements in Sierra Leone with iron ore miner London Mining, BSG Resources’ Koidu Holdings, a diamond miner, Cluff Gold, Baomahun Gold Mines, and Sierra Rutile, a miner of titanium dioxide.