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The coal-mining dispute in Australia between the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) and Peabody Energy at the North Goonyella mine intensified when the US-based company used the country&rsquo;s new Fair Work law to lock 280 miners from their jobs in central Queensland. Just as CFMEU was to ratchet up industrial actions in protest to a radical Peabody overhaul to an enterprise labour agreement, the company imposed a 10-day, unpaid lockout on 9 December. 
 
The very next day, some 20 CFMEU miners from Mackay, Queensland, flew to Brisbane where they were joined by 100 others in a protest at Peabody&rsquo;s Australian offices. The Brisbane protest happened while police and private security 800 kilometres away in Mackay erected barricades at mine gates, expecting the protest there. 
 
The dispute started in early November (see InBrief No. 144 article <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3507-CFMEU-Begins-Job-Actions-at-Peabody-Coal-in-Australia">here</a>) when strike actions began following Peabody&rsquo;s intransigence over a CFMEU proposal to again extend the enterprise agreement, while giving a long overdue pay raise. 

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Miners at North Goonyella have been without a pay increase since May 2008. The labour agreement expired in March 2008 and was extended for one year. The two sides then began bargaining toward a new agreement but seven months later Peabody&rsquo;s steep concessionary demands brought forth a formal dispute. 
 
The mining company is seeking a radically changed work shift structure, one that would negatively impact pay grids. CFMEU members are concerned about fatigue and work safety, and also have grievances over living conditions in on-site housing. 
 
A Peabody spokeswoman termed the lockout an employer protective action under the Labour government&rsquo;s Fair Work law, which took effect 1 July 2009. It is one of the first defensive lockouts used by bosses under the Labour government&rsquo;s new law. 
 
At last Thursday&rsquo;s manifestation in Brisbane, CFMEU District Vice President Glenn Power said, &ldquo;We are here to protest and send a clear message to Peabody that their corporate greed and bullish attitude around the negotiating table needs to be reconsidered.&rdquo; 
 
The two sides were to meet today, 16 December, for further talks. Peabody mines coking coal from the underground mine at North Goonyella that is exported from Dalrymple Bay, Queensland, and used in steel-making. The mine and the adjacent open-cast Eaglefield mine produce three million short tons of coal per annum. Peabody bought the mines from Germany-based RAG AG in 2003.

Peabody Locks Out CFMEU Coal Miners in Australia

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The ICEM has participated at events each day of the Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and will continue to do so. 
 
Find below a brief report from each day. 
 
6 December: COP15 is the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. As many as 400 trade union representatives from around the world will be here in Copenhagen to make the case for working people. COP15 is considered to be a particularly important Conference of the Parties, since the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and COP15 is supposed to be the Conference at which a successor to the Kyoto Protocol is agreed upon, or at least substantially mapped out. There is a sense of urgency since the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is bleak. The world must act quickly. 

<img height="167" alt="" src="" width="171" />
The earth is a high-tech animated, illuminated model of the earth at the USA pavillion that can display multiple climate variables
The ICEM says that we need a fair, ambitious and binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions to deal with the problem of climate change. However, an agreement that fails to include a strategy for job creation, job protection, and a Just Transition plan, will fail to create a sustainable future. It cannot be jobs versus the environment. It must be both, or it will ultimately be neither. 
 
7 December: COP-15 officially opened today, with the expected chaos at the registration tables as tens of thousands of official negotiators, observers, and press tried to obtain the badges that would allow them to pass through the tight security. 
 
At the first plenary session on &quot;Longterm Cooperative Action&quot;, there were no surprises as both rich, developed nations and poorer, developing nations staked out their initial positions. 
 
One thing is certain: when the bill for environmental collapse comes due, it is ordinary people - workers, their families, and the communities that depend on them - that will pay the price. Another path is possible, a path that seeks prosperity and sustainability through the transformation of existing jobs and the creation of a greener economy. Do we have the wisdom to choose it? 
 
8 December: The big news of today was a &quot;leaked&quot; draft final agreement that allegedly was produced by the Danish Prime Minister's office in consultation with other countries. Presumably, it is meant to be a fall-back agreement should the two weeks of COP15 fail to reach a substantive agreement. As such, it proposes no firm greenhouse gas emissions targets, no defined levels of financial assistance for developing countries, and is stripped of all references to social impacts including sustainable jobs or Just Transition. Most alarmingly, it raises the possibility that years of work leading up to this conference may be by-passed in the last minute, simply to have something signed at the end. Obviously this is unacceptable. As this story evolved, it emerged that there are several alternate texts being prepared or circulated outside of the &quot;official&quot; process. 

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Michael Cutajar,&nbsp;the chair of the &quot;Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action&quot;
9 December:&nbsp;a Wednesday, 9 December, meeting.&nbsp;The&nbsp; Ad-hoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action released a new version of its &quot;Shared Vision&quot; paper, and a key demand of labour - a paragraph on Just Transition - is retained, so far. In the plenary meetings, much of the discussion was about financing, with several proposals to fold funding for climate mitigation and adaptation into overall aid funds, and allow it to be managed by &quot;international financial institutions&quot; such as the World Bank. Costa Rica and Tuvalu proposed fairly strong emissions reduction targets for both developed, and developing countries. This has at least temporarily split the G77 group of countries, as a number of members of that group were opposed to the proposal. 
 
10 December: 10&nbsp;December was a day of many closed-door meetings and rumours. On labour's key paragraph (in the &quot;Shared Vision&quot; document of the working group on Longterm Cooperative Action) covering decent work and Just Transition, there was support from Argentina, the EU, and the US, but the paragraph is still vulnerable to hostile amendments or outright deletion. This is the wording so far:
&nbsp; 
&quot;Realizing that harmonizing sustainable development while addressing climate change and demands for a more equitable utilization of the global atmospheric resource necessitate a paradigm shift that adjusts global economic growth patterns towards a [low-emission] [high-growth] sustainable climate-resilient development, based on innovative technologies and more sustainable production and consumption, while ensuring a just transition of the workforce which creates decent work and quality jobs, and seeking the active participation of all stakeholders be they governmental, including subnational and local government, private business or civil society, including the youth, and addressing the need for gender equity.&quot; 

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The &quot;Fossil of the Day&quot; is awarded by environmental groups to the country or countries that have been the worst behaved that day in their opinion
11 December: At today's plenary meeting of the Adhoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action, &quot;labour's paragraph&quot; (discussed in yesterday's dispatch) survived - at least in concept - and will likely be retained in the final report of the &quot;Shared Vision&quot;! As several amendments were proposed labour must be cautious in our celebration until a final version of the paragraph emerges. However, this is an important milestone, and testimony to the effectiveness of many months of preparatory work and a week of lobbying here at COP15. We must now get to work to make sure the final version contains acceptable wording, and that politicians talk about it when the Copenhagen outcomes are announced. 
 
In other fora, debate continued between developed and developing countries over targets and financing. 
ITUC Copenhagen Reports <a href="http://climate.ituc-csi.org/2009-ituc-statement-on-climate.html?lang=fr">here</a>.

ICEM: First Week Diary and Commentary at Copenhagen

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With pressures mounting on Brazilian-based Vale to return to bargaining in the Canadian nickel strike now entering its sixth month, the company and United Steelworkers (USW) are fighting battles in the courtroom and before the public in what has become a pitched, bitter dispute between working-class Canadians and a rich, profitable multinational. 
 
If the public war of words over who first must amend its position so bargaining can resume is not enough, the two sides are now belligerent combatants in face-to-face side dramas, including changes to a picket line protocol agreement and grievances and unfair work practices before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The latter is over Vale&rsquo;s intent to make non-striking USW members perform struck work. 
 
Canadian management of Vale has also deployed divide-and-conquer tactics by trying to drive a wedge between striking steelworkers, as well as giving the false public perception that its social rollback proposals to USW branch unions are a necessary ingredient to sustainable mining in Canada. 

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Some 3,250 miners and metalworkers went on strike at Vale&rsquo;s nickel mining, smelting, and processing operations in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, on 13 July 2009, while another 350 copper and nickel miners from Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay, Labrador, joined the strike on 1 August. Vale, which bought Canada-based Inco&rsquo;s assets late in 2006, is seeking to strip away a production bonus from Canadian steelworkers, impose a two-tiered pension plan, and gain contract language to allow it greater flexibility on using sub-contractors, which ultimately jeopardizes job security and the sustainable future of workers themselves. 
 
For ten weeks now, Vale has made threatening moves that it would re-start production at its mines and processing facilities in northern Ontario near Sudbury, something never before done in a labour dispute at Sudbury. The company most recently posted notices that it will re-start the massive Copper Cliff smelter using a selected contractor. 
 
The union has filed an unfair labour practice with the Ontario labour board because Vale insists on using USW Local 2020 members &ndash; clerical, admin, and technical workers &ndash; to perform mining and processing work. Local 2020 itself has filed serious safety grievances against Vale for assigning its members work they are not trained for. 
 
A picket-line protocol agreement signed on 29 July has been a subject of contention, primarily due to Vale&rsquo;s desire to amend it. The company wants to include in the protocol the transfer of buses carrying replacement workers across strike lines. This courtroom conflict also involves how long USW Local 6500 strikers can delay vehicles upon entry to company property, as well as lesser issues such as Vale&rsquo;s failure to supply strikers&rsquo; firewood, as stipulated in the original agreement. 

<img alt="" src="" width="347" height="138" />
Those and other picket-line issues are before an Ontario Superior Court justice, who is expected to rule on revised picket-line conduct before the end of December. 
 
Vale has also made an overture to the 200 USW Local 6200 members in Port Colborne, 400 kilometres south of Sudbury, to resume negotiations without Local 6500. This move is a blatant effort to divide the two workforces. Locals 6500 and 6200 share the same labour agreement. Local 6200 President Wayne Rae says separating the two workforces will never happen. 
 
And last week, Vale&rsquo;s Canadian managers circumvented official union structures by sending a letter directly to all workers on strike. The letter urged workers to call on their unions to return to bargaining and accept Vale&rsquo;s concessions because the company intends &ldquo;moving ahead on business,&rdquo; meaning a return to production using replacement workers and contractors. 
 
The USW responded in an 11 December press release, stating that it has already put forth a good-faith invitation to Vale to return to talks under no pre-conditions. &quot;We are publicly reiterating our position today because Vale's letter attempts to misrepresent our willingness to resume meaningful discussions,&quot; read the statement. 

<img alt="" src="" width="284" height="113" />
&quot;We are ready and willing to get back to the bargaining today, unconditionally. Given the impact this dispute is having on our working families and our community as a whole, it is incumbent on the union and the company to drop all preconditions and start talking to each other again. 
 
&quot;Unfortunately, Vale Inco continues to stick by its preconditions and its argument that it needs concessions to maintain its 'sustainability,' when its demands such as cutting the nickel bonus do not affect its sustainability whatsoever. Vale had to win a bidding war to purchase this profitable company. Inco made profits each year with nickel prices lower than today's. Vale has reaped huge profits under the current contract. No one can say Sudbury's rich nickel mines are not sustainable.&quot; 
 
USW branch locals in Ontario and Labrador have been buoyed by a private member&rsquo;s bill in the Canadian Parliament by MP Claude Gravelle. The proposed legislation would give transparency to all deals made within the Investment Canada Act, a haunting lesson on democracy to many Canadians since details between the federal government and Vale were kept secret when the company bought Inco. 
 
Gravelle has also submitted two additional bills aimed at making public all facts surrounding Vale&rsquo;s purchase of Inco and Xstrata&rsquo;s buy-up of Canadian-based Falconbridge, a deal that also included valuable copper-nickel assets in northern Ontario. 
 
For Sudbury Local 6500, the 3,100-member union continues promoting solidarity within its own ranks through unity, fraternity, and an acute community awareness that says successfully resisting Vale&rsquo;s take-aways is the real path for a sustainable future. 
 
From 10 to 15 December, Local 6500 embarked on a Week of Action that include several activities in Sudbury. Those activities included a 10 December, International Human Rights Day candlelight vigil and march done in unison with the Sudbury District Labour Council of the Canadian Labour Congress. The next day, 11 December, students and the faculty union association of nearby Laurentian University conducted &ldquo;Out of the Classroom and Onto the Picket Lines,&rdquo; in which class sessions were moved to the picket lines of the Copper Cliff smelter in order to study the causes and effects of the strike. 

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A Families Supporting the Strikers&rsquo; fundraiser was held on the weekend, 12-13 December, while a Steelworker Solidarity Support caravan from Toronto also visited picket lines on 13 December. Today, 14 December, union veterans and retirees will conduct a symposium entitled &ldquo;Lessons From the Past &ndash; What We Have Won,&rdquo; complete with reflections on a strike in 1978 and the necessity to retain what has already been gained. 
 
And tomorrow, 15 December, Local 6500 members and their families will hold a &ldquo;Fair Deal for Our Families&rdquo; march and manifestation at Vale-Inco&rsquo;s Copper Cliff offices. 
 
On 3 December, in another outpouring of support for the striking Canadian miners, scores of members from the US-based union Unite-Here joined Local 6500 and Local 6200 members who bused to New York City to protest an award by the Business Council for International Understanding to Roger Agnelli, Vale&rsquo;s CEO. 
 
The joining of hands by Unite-Here, who recently returned to the AFL-CIO, with the USW was symbolic of renewed unity inside the American trade union movement, solidarity now extending into Canada. 
 
The ICEM has been joined by the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) in waging a global campaign in support of Canadian miners. The miners&rsquo; own English-language website gives complete and up-to-date details of the bitter strike. It can be found <a href="http://www.fairdealnow.ca">here</a>.

USW, Vale Spar Over Picket Line, Scab Threats in Canadian Nickel Strike

Unions Make Work Safer: Today, 28 April, Every Day

Dear Colleagues, 
 
Svenska Pappers, the Swedish Paperworkers Union, and the Forest Industry Employers&rsquo; Association (SFIF) reached excellent union-friendly terms on a collective agreement last night, 26 April, just minutes before a second wave of strike action at six further Swedish pulp and paper mills was to begin. (See ICEM report of a week ago <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3709-Swedish-Paper-Strike-Continues">here</a>.) 
 
The union and its negotiating committee, led by President Jan-Henrik Sandberg, deserves a solid congratulatory note from all for holding firm against a business-backed employers&rsquo; group that was attempting to use the financial crisis to short-change workers. Indeed, the terms of this settlement reflect the very best industrial package achieved in and beyond Sweden of late, and Pappers truly deserves your congratulations. Please send a note in your own words, and your own language to Mikke Sterbeck at <a href="mailto:mikke.sterbeck.fk@pappers.se">mikke.sterbeck.fk@pappers.se</a>. 
 
Pappers is very pleased with the settlement, as well they should be. Following an 11-day strike at six mills, and on the verge of striking another six mills, the employers agreed to terms giving 18,000 paperworkers a 3.3% wage increase over 22 months. The first year&rsquo;s increase will be given 1 May, instead of the 1 June date that employers sought, and the second increase comes on 1 April 2011, again ahead of when the employers wanted to give it. Actually, in calculating the total pay package, it comes out to 3.4%, considering other items, including a 0.4% additional increase for the lowest paid workers in the sector. 
 
Pappers won excellent language regarding workers (and on behalf of these workers) who are hired through labour agencies, and the union won company-paid compensation for retirees in an aspect of the pension scheme that was at issue. In addition, Pappers won an additional month of company-paid maternity/paternity leave. The union is holding a teleconference with branch unions on Tuesday morning, 27 April, to explain this excellent package, a package that came about mainly due to the fact that 99.9% of its members were willing and did take industrial action. For this, the union deserves a congratulatory note from everyone in the global pulp and paper sector. Again, send to <a href="mailto:mikke.sterbeck.fk@pappers.se">mikke.sterbeck.fk@pappers.se</a>.

Settlement in Sweden; Union Deserves Congratulations

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Each of the three Industrial European Trade Union Federations has given their leaders a mandate to move towards a merger. ICEM&rsquo;s sister organisation, the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers&rsquo; Federation (EMCEF), the European Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (EMF), and the European Trade Union Federation for Textiles, Clothing and Leather (ETUF:TCL) seek to create a single European industrial trade union federation. 
 
On 25 March 2010, the presidents and general secretaries of the three organisations met in Berlin, to discuss next steps in the merger process. A merged organisation will bring together 8 million workers in the manufacturing industries, and united they will be stronger. Other factors cited include continued integration of countries in Europe, globalisation, the recent financial and economic crisis, and several significant recent mergers at the national level. 

<img alt="" src="" width="201" height="151" />
The three presidents and three general secretaries, present at the Berlin meeting, underlined their belief that the combining of their resources would increase efficiency and strength, in their role of representing and protecting European workers throughout the industrial sectors. 
 
The leaders of the three federations agreed to oversee intensified discussions within their statutory bodies over the creation of a joint EMF-EMCEF-ETUF:TCL organisation. 
 
A joint Working Group for building the new organisation was created, and will now produce a timetable for the process.

Discussions Advance in Building Single European Industrial Trade Union Federation

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ICEM energy and mining affiliates in West Africa set ambitious priorities and work commitments in Dakar, Senegal, on 7-8 April. In workshops sponsored by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES) of Germany, unions of the region focused on specific growth strategies, the increasing threat of use of casual labour by multinational enterprises, and the necessity of West African nations to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Health and Safety in Mines Convention. 
 
Representatives from 13 trade unions in 11 countries participated in the two-day forum. The workshops were unique in that individual unions stepped forward and pledged to lead cross-union efforts in specific areas. 
 
&quot;The entire resolve coming from the workshops underpins the commitment by ICEM West African affiliates to build strong and democratic unions in which to challenge multinational companies,&quot; said ICEM Sub-Saharan Representative Fabian Nkomo. &quot;We have committed to challenge the exploitation of workers that leaves both communities and countries very poor. 

<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="153" />
Fabian Nkomo
&quot;It is a commitment to help democratic countries improve the lives of ordinary people, but also a challenge to non-democratic governments to democratise,&quot; added Nkomo. &quot;In short, it is a call for better lives for all citizens in West African countries.&quot; 
 
All ICEM trade union affiliates of the region will consolidate their three- and four-year plans on growth strategies with each other. Those plans will center on leadership accountability to trade union members, and ownership of trade union structures by rank-and-file members. 
 
With West Africa fast becoming a hub of upstream oil and gas production, the Nigerian trade unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, took on responsibility to lead a campaign against casualisation, or the growing use of Contract and Agency Labour (CAL). The two unions will lead a mobilisation to build formidable trade unions in oil- and gas-producing nations of West Africa. 

<img alt="" src="" width="146" height="66" />
The Ghana Mine Workers' Union (GMWU) will lead the push for adoption of ILO Convention 176 in West African nations, as well as to develop and mobilise a cross-region campaign toward that end. 
 
A further commitment was made by participating trade unions to propose a Social Charter to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). That charter will specifically include adherence to all core ILO labour standards. ICEM Sub-Saharan African CAL Coordinator Joseph Toe and Ayikoue Teve of CSTT in Togo will head that effort. 
 
Finally, West African trade unions promised to spread training and education activities throughout their unions, and not to limit such opportunities only to individual leaders. 
 
The ICEM is grateful to FES for sponsoring the workshops; a forum that ICEM believes can be a turning point in trade union development in West Africa.

West African ICEM Unions Formulate Specific Goals in FES Workshops

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Negotiations to end a national dispute across Sweden's pulp and paper sector failed last night, 18 April, at midnight when ICEM affiliate Svenska Pappers and the employers' Forest Industry Association (SFIF) adjourned bargaining. 
 
The two sides are to try again today, 19 April, at 18h00. 
 
The union held true to its promise to strike six pulp and paper mills on 16 April. Those six mills, employing 3,000 of Sweden's 18,000 paperworkers, are now facing ongoing strikes. 
 
They include: Billerud Skarblacka; Holmen Braviken; the Holmen Iggesund mill in Korsnas; Stora Enso&rsquo;s Skoghall Mill; SCA Packaging in Munksund; and Sodra Cell's Varo pulp mill. 

<img alt="" src="" width="240" height="145" />
On 15 April, two days following a marathon bargaining session also failed, the Swedish Paperworkers' Union (Svenska Pappers) announced that workers at six more mills would strike at 18h00 on Monday, 26 April, if no agreement is made. 
 
Those mills include: Smurfit-Kappa's mill at Pitea, the SCA Obbola mill, Stora Enso's Fors mill, the Korsnas Frovi mill, Billerud's Gruvon mill, and Sodra's Monsteras pulp mill. Those six mills employ 2,800 Pappers members. 
 
The central issues are pay and ensuring that Swedish paperworkers receive a 2010 salary increase backdated to 1 April, the date of a prior three-year contract expiration; items related to a pension scheme; an adequate increase for the lowest paid workers in the industry; and an assurance on union consultation when temporary workers or labour agencies are used for employment. 
 
For ICEM's solidarity call in support of Swedish paperworkers, click <a href="-Travailleurs-du-secteur-pâte-et">here</a>.

Swedish Paper Strike Continues

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Some 70 protestors from the UK, Netherlands, and Belgium demonstrated with locked-out members of the US International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in London last week. The venue was the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Rio Tinto, the global mining company that maliciously, on 31 January, locked 560 members of ILWU Local 30 off their jobs in Boron, California, before reaching impasse in collective bargaining. 
 
The manifestation at the AGM was organised by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), with support from the ICEM and the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF). Several NGOs, including the London Mining Network, joined the labour rally, bringing with them a host of Rio Tinto's environmental atrocities from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia, to Madagascar, and Mongolia. 

<img alt="" src="" width="360" height="240" />
Dick Blin, Dave Irish, Ray Familathe, Tony Burke
Inside the meeting, Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese fielded questions regarding the company's conduct for nearly two hours. Local 30 bargaining committee member Dave Irish queried why Rio Tinto was willing to take deep revenue drops through lost production brought on by the lockout, while at the same time imposing economic hardships on 560 working families. 
 
Albanese's answer was polite, but succinct in capturing the general philosophy of corporations everywhere: prioritising profits before people. He said Rio Tinto's rollbacks on working terms and conditions at Boron were necessary in order to bring ILWU Local 30's collective agreement more in line with other company enterprises in North America. 
 
That answer was clear. Despite massive profits driven mainly by iron ore, copper, and coal -- and even by the relatively small Rio Tinto Minerals, which controls a 45% market share of the global borates business -- the London/Melbourne-based mining house subscribes to &quot;the race to the bottom&quot; philosophy of suppressing human and social benefits. 

<img alt="" src="" width="163" height="231" />
Dave Irish left, locked out Local 30 worker, and ILWU VP Ray Familathe
Following the meeting, ILWU Vice President Ray Familathe caught up with Albanese in a corner of the Queen Elizabeth II Convention Centre. He told him the company's strong-arm bargaining methods in California will surely backfire, including galvanizing the global trade union movement to pressure the company in any way possible. 
 
The ILWU has already begun that backlash by vigorously lobbying the US government to delay a land swap between the government and Rio Tinto in the state of Arizona in which the company was to gain valuable copper deposits. 
 
For the ILWU, the European trip also meant a strongly worded resolution in support of Local 30 be the European Works Council of Alcan, a Canadian-based metals producer that Rio Tinto acquired in 2007. That effort was spearheaded by the Metalworkers' affiliate of French CGT. 
 
A day after the London AGM of April 15, the American union also did protest actions against Rio Tinto at British consulate offices in the US cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and in Vancouver, Canada. 

<img alt="" src="" width="205" height="154" />
Perhaps not coincidentally within last week's trade union actions, Rio Tinto Minerals and ILWU Local 30 did return to bargaining on 14-15 April, the first set of talks since the lockout began. It was a fact noted by Albanese from the dais of the AGM, but clearly missing was any willingness by Rio Tinto to budge from its concessionary proposals. In California, the two sides adjourned late on 15 April without making any meaningful progress. 
 
This week, on 22 April, Rio Tinto is scheduled to replicate its AGM in Melbourne and the ILWU will be there. Shareholders will hear Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams and locked-out Local 30 activist Terri Judd tell of the anguish faced by Mojave Desert, California, families. They will have the support of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). 
 
Again, Albanese will be questioned on why the company he heads needs unprecedented givebacks by workers of their holidays, their seniority rights, their health care protections, and why Rio Tinto needs to infringe on full-time, direct employment in seeking to gain greater latitude to outsource jobs. 
Hear the RadioLabour interview with Dave Irish <a href="http://www.radiolabour.net/ICEM/rio-tinto-180410.mp3">here</a>. 
 
See a short video of the demo in London <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsK2iwccL7k">here</a>.

US ILWU Members Take California Lockout to Rio Tinto AGM

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&rsquo;s Borate Business 
 
 Rio Tinto&rsquo;s borate mining and processing business is part of its Diamonds &amp; Minerals product group, which reported net earnings of $800 million in 2009. 
 
 The company&rsquo;s borate business consists primarily of its mine &ndash; the largest borate deposit in the world &ndash; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s future is bright and already improving. In his &ldquo;State of Business&rdquo; address in August 2009, Rio Tinto Vice President Chris Robison said, &ldquo;the financial position of the company is very strong.&rdquo; Independent experts predict demand for borates will increase significantly in 2010, mainly due to the growth in Chinese manufacturing. China is Rio Tinto&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.

Facts About Rio Tinto and the Lock Out in Boron, California

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