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5 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 48/2000
Mining giant Rio Tinto may be about to change its hardline labour relations in Australia.
The country's Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) welcomed a further assurance today by Rio Tinto chief executive Leigh Clifford that the company will respect its employees' right to bargain collectively.
At this morning's Rio Tinto Annual General Meeting in Brisbane, Clifford repeated the company's commitment to industrial "peace" while the chairman, Robert Wilson, spoke of "reconciliation" with Rio Tinto's union employees.
VOTE SENSATION
And a vote by Rio Tinto shareholders caused a sensation today.
Two union-backed resolutions opposed by the Board garnered 20.3 percent and 17.3 percent of the investors' votes. This result is unprecedented in the history of multinational corporations and will undoubtedly boost the new technique of social campaigning via shareholder proxies.
One of the resolutions concerns corporate governance. The other urges the company to comply with the basic trade union rights standards of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). In line with Rio Tinto's dual-listing structure, the result combines the outcome of the shareholder vote at its London AGM on 10 May with today's Brisbane vote.
The corporate governance resolution gained 113,858,565 votes (20.3 percent), while the resolution on ILO standards received 95,413,654 votes (17.3 percent).
The resolutions were part of a global campaign backed by the CFMEU, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
The ICEM, to which the CFMEU is affiliated, is a global industrial union federation representing more than 20 million workers of all continents.
This was the first time that trade unions had mobilised shareholder action of this kind at the global level. It was part of an ongoing campaign by the ICEM and its affiliates to ensure that Rio Tinto respects trade union rights worldwide.
PEACE CALL WELCOMED
Tony Maher, President of the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division, welcomed today's remarks by the two Rio Tinto chiefs. Maher called on the company to demonstrate the sincerity of its commitment by sitting down with the union to resolve the issues confronting workers at its operations.
"I was particularly pleased to hear the Chairman, Mr Wilson, admit to shareholders that the company had made mistakes in the past in employee relations," Maher said. "If Rio Tinto matches its rhetoric at this morning's AGM with action at its operations, the time is now ripe for the unions and the company to go forward together in a mutually beneficial relationship."
Hundreds of Australian miners demonstrated in Brisbane just before the AGM. They travelled from mines across Queensland and New South Wales to press for full trade union rights at Rio Tinto operations. Their protest was well covered by Australian television and other media.
GLOBAL AGREEMENT?
"We warmly welcome Rio Tinto's express commitment to respect trade union rights in Australia," commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Sinaia, Rumania, today. "The ICEM hopes that the outstanding industrial disputes in the company's Australian operations can now be resolved quickly and fairly.
"Once that is done," Higgs said, "Rio Tinto and the ICEM can get down to negotiating a global agreement. Issues that could be covered in such an agreement include trade union rights and other human rights, health, safety and the environment, and equality at work. A global agreement would be in the best interests of Rio Tinto workers everywhere, but also of the company itself and of all its stakeholders."