19 April, 2010
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.
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 "the race to the bottom" philosophy of suppressing human and social benefits.
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.
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 here.
See a short video of the demo in London here.