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19 September, 2005ICEM News release No. 61/1999
Placer Dome, the world's third-biggest gold miner, faces a global trade union campaign aimed at reversing the company's recently announced job cuts and pressing it to repair the severe environmental damage that it has caused in a number of countries where it operates.
Gold mining workers' leaders from around the world unanimously adopted a resolution to that effect this afternoon, at the close of a World Gold Forum held in Durban, South Africa. The event was organised by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), whose membership includes gold mine workers on all continents.
The forum also agreed proposals for safeguarding the future of the world gold industry as a whole.
The World Gold Forum precedes the ICEM World Congress (Durban, 3-5 November). This will map out a trade union response to globalisation.
Today's resolution was sponsored by South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is campaigning for the reinstatement of 2,895 workers recently retrenched at Placer Dome's Western Areas joint venture near Johannesburg. The sackings represent a cut of around 40 percent in the company's South African workforce, and are a potentially explosive issue in a country which has an unemployment rate of about 30 percent.
Seconding the action call was Australian mining union the CFMEU. In solidarity with the South Africans, CFMEU members will picket Placer Dome offices in Australia next Monday morning - just a few hours after an NUM rally at Western Areas on Sunday 31 October.
Full text of today's resolution:
Noting that:
1. Placer Dome is a Canadian transnational having mining interests in many countries.
2. Placer Dome has a terrible record of destroying jobs and the environment and a disregard for the communities, wherever they have invested, in pursuit of profits.
3. The owners and management have a history of union bashing while projecting itself as the best gold mining company on the earth.
Believing that:
1. Global investment should be socially responsible and must not undermine human rights, trade union rights, the community and the environment.
2. In those countries where investments are made, collective bargaining conventions must be respected. A balance between global rules and the scope of domestic regulation has to be struck.
We therefore resolve that:
1. Placer Dome be targeted for an international campaign by the ICEM.
2. This campaign should entail demands on the reinstatement of retrenched workers in the Western Areas Gold Mine Joint Venture; and restoration of the environment destroyed in the Philippines, Chile, Peru, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
3. Placer Dome be pressured to sign a Global Agreement on Industrial Relations with the ICEM.
4. A solid foundation for this campaign be built by organising a workshop early in the year 2000 for representatives from countries where Placer Dome has operations. A common platform for worker rights and working conditions and a programme for international worker solidarity must be agreed at this workshop.
5. Unions affiliated to the ICEM must, where necessary, make available organisers and leaders to give direct practical assistance to worker struggles and organise the unorganised in Placer Dome operations throughout the world.
Gold mining workers' leaders from around the world unanimously adopted a resolution to that effect this afternoon, at the close of a World Gold Forum held in Durban, South Africa. The event was organised by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), whose membership includes gold mine workers on all continents.
The forum also agreed proposals for safeguarding the future of the world gold industry as a whole.
The World Gold Forum precedes the ICEM World Congress (Durban, 3-5 November). This will map out a trade union response to globalisation.
Today's resolution was sponsored by South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is campaigning for the reinstatement of 2,895 workers recently retrenched at Placer Dome's Western Areas joint venture near Johannesburg. The sackings represent a cut of around 40 percent in the company's South African workforce, and are a potentially explosive issue in a country which has an unemployment rate of about 30 percent.
Seconding the action call was Australian mining union the CFMEU. In solidarity with the South Africans, CFMEU members will picket Placer Dome offices in Australia next Monday morning - just a few hours after an NUM rally at Western Areas on Sunday 31 October.
Full text of today's resolution:
Noting that:
1. Placer Dome is a Canadian transnational having mining interests in many countries.
2. Placer Dome has a terrible record of destroying jobs and the environment and a disregard for the communities, wherever they have invested, in pursuit of profits.
3. The owners and management have a history of union bashing while projecting itself as the best gold mining company on the earth.
Believing that:
1. Global investment should be socially responsible and must not undermine human rights, trade union rights, the community and the environment.
2. In those countries where investments are made, collective bargaining conventions must be respected. A balance between global rules and the scope of domestic regulation has to be struck.
We therefore resolve that:
1. Placer Dome be targeted for an international campaign by the ICEM.
2. This campaign should entail demands on the reinstatement of retrenched workers in the Western Areas Gold Mine Joint Venture; and restoration of the environment destroyed in the Philippines, Chile, Peru, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
3. Placer Dome be pressured to sign a Global Agreement on Industrial Relations with the ICEM.
4. A solid foundation for this campaign be built by organising a workshop early in the year 2000 for representatives from countries where Placer Dome has operations. A common platform for worker rights and working conditions and a programme for international worker solidarity must be agreed at this workshop.
5. Unions affiliated to the ICEM must, where necessary, make available organisers and leaders to give direct practical assistance to worker struggles and organise the unorganised in Placer Dome operations throughout the world.