International protest against Rio Tinto

Today, an international day of protest takes place against Rio Tinto, one of the leading global mining and metals company. All over the world, in Australia (its country of origin), Canada, United States, South Africa and France, there are happenings to highlight the poor social and environmental practices of the firm. This "world day of protestation" has been initiated by the international Global Union called IndustriALL. Let's have a look on what is reproached to Rio Tinto. 

From a general manner, what is reproached to Rio Tinto is its deceptive communication about environment and social responsibility. Indeed, several points are (widely) open to criticism : 

• Uranium mine leaks in Australia : in the Nothern Territory, Rio Tinto is accused of having polluted water and areas around its former Rum Jungle mine. In addition, the € 10 billion earnings didn't pay for the two clean-up programmes which cost € 14 million to Australian taxpayers.
   
• Deaths in Namibian mine : last April, a report pointed out that several miners died of cancers and other illnesses after having work for years at Rio Tinto's Rössing mine. According to the study, all workers questionned said that they have were exposed to high levels of dust. At the same time a Rio Tinto's spokesman said that Rössing has been recognised as one of the world's safest mines by independant consultants, which looks pretty strange in comparison with the high amount of deaths that occurred. More info about it are available on the Guardian.  

The video below shows the devastating effects of uranium mining in Namibia. 

• Poor labor relations : officially, Rio Tinto claims to be bulding enduring relationships and a zero harm culture, but there's a gap between what is said and what is actually done. A good example occurred in January 2012, when Canadian workers protested against a proposed reduction in their activities. The only answer or RT was to  locked the 780 workers. It was purely a punishment for rejecting management attempts to halve salaries and outsource the wokforce. The lockout lasted six months, a long struggle finally won by workers. If you want to know more about it.
   
• Modern slavery in Papua New Guinea : maybe the biggest scandal that the Australian firm had to face. So much  that the cas wen to the International Courtof Justice with allegations of complicity in war crimes and genocide. The proceedings were reopened in 2011 at the request of inhabitants from the Bougainville Island. They accused Rio Tinto of having reduced people to slavery and forced them to work in mines during the late 1980s.
   
• Population displacements :  in addition to what happened in Papua New Guinea, the Australian is also accused for its behavior in Mozambique and Mongolia. Over there, it was a mix of what it did in Canada and what it did in Africa. Displacement, intimidation and lockout for profits. This, 1700 workers have been fired overnight. In Mozambique the problem had been a quite different : the company had difficulties to make profits so it decided to drastically reduce spending, at the expense of workers welfare (which wasn't even really good).     
   
• Greenwashing : I could write a lot about it but :
  1) I think that uranium cases already are good examples that Rio Tinto is not a proper company.
  2) Just watch this video, it's short and it's better than a paragrah. 

To conclude I'd like to redirect you to the report made by IndustriALL, which is called Unsustainable : the ugly truth about Rio Tinto. It goes farther than my article about the different scandals in whcih the company is involved, I hope it'll interest you.

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Exposing the ugly truth about Rio Tinto

IndustriALL Global Union has produced a report released today; "Unsustainable: The Ugly Truth about Rio Tinto" highlighting the multinational's global practices. And today, workers from numerous ...

http://www.industriall-union.org/exposing-the-uggly-truth-about-rio-tinto

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