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Protests At Rio Tinto's Australian AGM

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23 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 28/1999

Hundreds of demonstrators braved heavy rain in Perth, Australia, this morning to protest against human rights abuses by the world's biggest mining company, Rio Tinto.

The demo took place as shareholders filed into the company's Annual General Meeting. Demonstrators included trade unionists protesting over Rio Tinto's industrial relations policies in Australia and elsewhere.

Rio Tinto is currently embroiled in a number of industrial disputes in Australia, essentially over the company's attempts to deunionise its mining operations there and move away from collective agreements.

Inside the AGM, 90% of the questions raised by shareholders were critical of Rio Tinto's financial performance and policies. Questioners cited the company's links with human rights abuses, its failure to honour internationally recognised labour standards, its continued environmental destruction and its deteriorating record on health and safety.

Despite the concerns which dominated the meeting, Rio Tinto chairman Robert Wilson refused a request to make a transcript of the AGM available.

A transcript would have enabled Rio Tinto shareholders and stakeholders throughout the world to read what the directors reported to the Perth AGM and what concerns the shareholders expressed there.

Tony Maher, General President of the Mining and Energy Division of Australia's Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), attended the AGM. He condemned Rio Tinto's refusal to make the proceedings publicly available.

"Rio Tinto claims it has a policy of transparency," Maher pointed out. "So what is it afraid of? It is no big deal these days to post the transcript on the Internet or indeed to make copies available to its shareholders and other interested parties.

"What is Rio Tinto trying to hide? Why won't it come clean?"

At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

Maher warned that the CFMEU and the ICEM will continue to work with human rights, indigenous and environmental organisations to campaign for Rio Tinto to accept UN-backed international standards at all its operations.