Read this article in:
5 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 44/2000
Global shareholder action on social issues will come of age tomorrow when mining giant Rio Tinto holds its Annual General Meeting in London.
An unprecedented campaign by the Coalition of Rio Tinto Shareholders aims to sway votes behind two resolutions - one on corporate governance, the other on labour rights.
All the signs are that the two resolutions will gain sizeable support - despite the notorious difficulty of passing any shareholder motions that are not approved in advance by a company's board. Big institutional investors with over 65 billion pounds sterling in assets [over 99.7 billion US dollars] have already promised to back the Coalition at tomorrow's AGM.
The resolutions call upon Rio Tinto to appoint one single, non-executive Deputy Chairman and to implement in full the core standards of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), which protect basic human rights at work.
Under its dual-listing structure, Rio Tinto holds two Annual General Meetings (AGMs) - one in London tomorrow and one in Brisbane, Australia, on 24 May. The resolutions will be put to shareholders at both meetings.
The AGM tomorrow starts at 11.00 a.m. in London's Queen Elizabeth Centre.
Major shareholders who will be voting for the Coalition proposals include the Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd. (CIS), one of the largest shareholders in Rio Tinto with more than 23 billion pounds under management. Friends, Ivory & Sime plc, a global investment management firm with more than 37 billion pounds under management, will be backing the resolution on ILO standards. Other big shareholders supporting the resolutions include the West Yorkshire Pension Fund and the South Yorkshire Pension Authority.
The shareholder campaign is backed by the Australian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (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), which is a global industrial union federation representing more than 20 million workers of all continents.
This is the first time that trade unions have organised a shareholder campaign of this kind at the global level.
Supporting the resolutions at tomorrow's AGM in London will be:
- Senzini Zokwana, President of the ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa (NUM)
- John Maitland, ICEM President
- Tony Maher, President of the Mining Division of the ICEM-affiliated CFMEU
- Joanne Segars, Senior Pensions Officer of the TUC
- Bill Patterson, Director, Office of Investment, AFL-CIO
- Simon Steyne, TUC International Officer and a Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative.
On the question of labour practices, the ICEM has already offered to negotiate and sign a global agreement with Rio Tinto. Under such an agreement, the ICEM and its affiliated unions worldwide would verify, among other things, the company's compliance with ILO core standards. Through the ICEM, unions would have the right to raise with Rio Tinto corporate management any alleged breaches of these standards.
However, the ICEM has also made it clear that Rio Tinto must resolve current industrial disputes in Australia before a global agreement can be signed.
An unprecedented campaign by the Coalition of Rio Tinto Shareholders aims to sway votes behind two resolutions - one on corporate governance, the other on labour rights.
All the signs are that the two resolutions will gain sizeable support - despite the notorious difficulty of passing any shareholder motions that are not approved in advance by a company's board. Big institutional investors with over 65 billion pounds sterling in assets [over 99.7 billion US dollars] have already promised to back the Coalition at tomorrow's AGM.
The resolutions call upon Rio Tinto to appoint one single, non-executive Deputy Chairman and to implement in full the core standards of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), which protect basic human rights at work.
Under its dual-listing structure, Rio Tinto holds two Annual General Meetings (AGMs) - one in London tomorrow and one in Brisbane, Australia, on 24 May. The resolutions will be put to shareholders at both meetings.
The AGM tomorrow starts at 11.00 a.m. in London's Queen Elizabeth Centre.
Major shareholders who will be voting for the Coalition proposals include the Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd. (CIS), one of the largest shareholders in Rio Tinto with more than 23 billion pounds under management. Friends, Ivory & Sime plc, a global investment management firm with more than 37 billion pounds under management, will be backing the resolution on ILO standards. Other big shareholders supporting the resolutions include the West Yorkshire Pension Fund and the South Yorkshire Pension Authority.
The shareholder campaign is backed by the Australian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (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), which is a global industrial union federation representing more than 20 million workers of all continents.
This is the first time that trade unions have organised a shareholder campaign of this kind at the global level.
Supporting the resolutions at tomorrow's AGM in London will be:
- Senzini Zokwana, President of the ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa (NUM)
- John Maitland, ICEM President
- Tony Maher, President of the Mining Division of the ICEM-affiliated CFMEU
- Joanne Segars, Senior Pensions Officer of the TUC
- Bill Patterson, Director, Office of Investment, AFL-CIO
- Simon Steyne, TUC International Officer and a Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative.
On the question of labour practices, the ICEM has already offered to negotiate and sign a global agreement with Rio Tinto. Under such an agreement, the ICEM and its affiliated unions worldwide would verify, among other things, the company's compliance with ILO core standards. Through the ICEM, unions would have the right to raise with Rio Tinto corporate management any alleged breaches of these standards.
However, the ICEM has also made it clear that Rio Tinto must resolve current industrial disputes in Australia before a global agreement can be signed.