Rio Tinto page

"Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his/her interests"

From mid 1997 to late 2000 the CFMEU was involved in a major campaign opposing the de-unionisation efforts of the multinational mining company Rio Tinto Plc/Ltd. This web page and those linked to it serve as a chronicle of that campaign through to the company's resumption of collective bargaining in late 2000. The CFMEU continues to work with others around Rio Tinto's ongoing problems in the areas of human rights, occupational health and safety, and environmental management.

Visitors to this page should also look at other parts of the CFMEU Mining & Energy website (Common Cause journal, our media releases, and our fax bulletins) for further news on the campaign.

13 July 2004: Almost six long years after Rio Tinto engaged in a series of mass dismissals of unionised workers, the last of the unfair dismissal claims launched by the union has been won. See the following media releases:

21 January 2002: in early 2002 Rio Tinto finally agreed, after many months of wrangling, to fair terms for a non-judicial process for dealing with compensation claims from hundreds of people affected by the now-closed Capper Pass tin smelter. The following resolution was moved in the UK House of Commons (parliament) as an "Early Day Motion".

That this House congratulates the claimants in Kingston Upon Hull and East Yorkshire, upon the successful conclusion of their mediation against Rio Tinto plc, the UK-based multinational mining corporation; applauds the ensuing implementation of the Capper Pass Claims Review Scheme to provide compensation for those who have suffered disease or death, resulting from the operation of the Capper Pass Smelting Plant in Hull, formerly the world's largest smelter; welcomes the extension of that scheme to cover employees and contractors, together with their families, residents, schoolchildren and those who suffered foetal exposure to that Plant's toxic, carcinogenic and radioactive emissions, without geographical limitation; acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable contribution of Sir Philip Otton, Chairman of the Claims Review Scheme Board, whose remarkable skills as a mediator succeeded in bringing the parties together, a Herculean task, in order that all concerned might now work constructively, with the renewed determination and purpose, to bring justice to each and every family concerned; and marks this great achievement, by paying tribute to the late Arthur Gray, for his courage and tenacity in leading the campaign against Rio Tinto, together with the strength of character and fortitude shown by him, in continuing that struggle whilst terminally ill with lung cancer.

26 November 2001: a full 15 months after Rio Tinto committed to a non-judicial process for compensation claims for Ca pp Pass victims, it suddenly announced that asbestos-related illnesses would be excluded from allowable claims. This has resulted in 11 members of the UK House of Commons (parliament) submitting the following resolution (known as an "Early Day Motion"):

"That this House expresses its condemnation of Rio Tinto, the UK based multinational mining conglomerate, for having sought to avoid liability for asbestos-related disease claims, under the proposed Capper Pass Claims Review Scheme; is gravely concerned to learn that former workers, as well as residents in Kingston upon Hull and East Yorkshire, or their next of kin, who have suffered industrial disease or illness, as a result of exposure to carcinogens, ionising radiation and toxic substances, arising from Rio Tinto's operation of the former Capper Pass Smelting Plant near Hull, are still waiting for compensation; declares its support for those families; commends them upon their courage and tenacity in standing up to Rio Tinto; is appalled by the fact that Rio Tinto's decision to exclude asbestos was kept secret until the final stages of mediation, a full 15 months after the claimants' solicitor had accepted the Claims' Review Scheme in principle; and demands that Rio Tinto should now acknowledge and accept its responsibility towards all of the claimants, to include those who have suffered asbestos-related disease or death and ensure that in the future it ceases to deploy such delaying and obstructive tactics."

5 June 2000: After years of denying any liability for cancers, diseases and other illnesses suffered by former employers and the surrounding communities of the now-closed Capper Pass smelter, Rio Tinto finally agreed to a claims process to settle the massive class action being brought against it. The massive concession by the company, which may ultimately see it pay out many millions of pounds in compensation, came just 48 hours before the release of a 500 page report by the solicitors leading the case.

For a copy of the press statement setting out the full scale of Rio Tinto's backdown, please click here.

In an associated event, 47 members of the UK parliament have moved that there be a full government inquiry on the health, safety and environmental tragedy that was, and is, Capper Pass. For a copy of that parliamentary motion, please click here.

December 1999: Capper Pass was a major tin smelter in the United Kingdom that closed in 1991. The company has continually claimed that the smelter was operated in accordance with all relevant occupational health and safety and environmental regulations. In the last month it has now admitted that it was wrong - there were major and persistent breaches of UK regulations. Has Rio Tinto, and in particular its chairman Robert Wilson, misled the public and even the company's own shareholders? Click here for more.

25 October 2000 After years of campaigning, trade unions have won an historic shift of position by global mining giant Rio Tinto. Since the shareholder campaign leading up to the May 2000 Annual General Meetings (see below) and the global week of action (also below), the company has shown a willingness to genuinely bargain with Australian unions. This has resulted in collective agreements at the three Hunter Valley mine sites which have seen bitter confrontation over the last three years.

The progress achieved has been announced by the International Federation of Chemical, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) to which the CFMEU is affiliated. Please click here for the ICEM's media statement.

The CFMEU has cautioned that much remains to be achieved before the company can claim to respect the rights of its workers. In Australia there remain three mass unfair dismissal claims, disputes over union recognition rights at certain sites, and damages claims by the company against numerous unions. And this year new evidence has emerged of anti-union activity by the company in Indonesia and Brazil.

The CFMEU will help coordinate the building of the Rio Tinto union network so that the company's performance in the workplace can be held up for public examination. And we will continue to work with Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) who are active in monitoring and challenging the company's performance on environmental management and human rights.

On 2 August 2000 the Australian SBS TV network screened a current affairs story on Rio Tinto in Brazil. The segment was broadcast nationally on the leading Dateline show. Chris Hammer reported that:

The documentary shows that the reality of some Rio Tinto operations is far removed from the pretty picture presented in the company's Annual Report and separate Social and Environment Report. These reports aim to assure investors that all is well at Rio Tinto operations and that the company's backers are safe from being linked to cases of human rights and environmental abuse. However, the SBS report shows that a little independent monitoring exposes major problems very quickly.

9-15 July 2000. Mineworkers from Rio Tinto's three Hunter Valley coal mines went on strike for 24 hours on Monday 10 July. The action coincided with protest by Rio Tinto workers across the world in a “global week of action” over Rio's poor employment practices.

Around 500 workers from the Hunter Valley No. 1, Mt Thorley and Howick mines attended a rally at Singleton showground (Hunter Valley region) at 10am. Protest actions by Rio Tinto workers are also occurring in three parts of the USA, in Chile, Brazil, Norway and South Africa. Solidarity actions will also occur in Thailand, Korea, the Philippines and India. The global protest comes on top of current strike action in Indonesia which has halted one of Rio's biggest coal mines (Kaltim Prima).

For a copy of the CFMEU media release and associated background information, please click here.

June 2000. The ICEM (International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions) has appointed a network coordinator to help build the work of the Rio Tinto Global Union Network. Please click here for a new summary factsheet on Rio Tinto and what it's doing (badly) around the world. Contact details are also provided.

Sydney, 25 May 2000 The CFMEU today described the massive votes of 20.3% and 17.3% for the union-sponsored shareholder resolutions as a stunning result. It is very rare for institutional investors to vote against the unanimous recommendation of the board of directors. But many did so on this occasion, indicating that they are unhappy with the direction of the company on these key issues. For a copy of the media release please click here.

Rio Tinto shareholders launch unprecedented global shareholder action on three continents

Sydney, 8 March 2000 - The Rio Tinto Shareholder Coalition, backed by worker-owners and trade unions in Australia, Europe and the United States, today launched an unprecedented global shareholder proxy contest within Rio Tinto. This is the first ever joint shareholder initiative sponsored by unions in several countries, and, in recognition of the growing globalisation of the capital markets, represents the broadest international proxy contest to date by any shareholder proponent.

Due to Rio Tinto's aggressive de-unionisation strategy, the CFMEU is involved in seemingly innumerable industrial disputes at Rio Tinto mines across the county. Many of these disputes have involved lengthy strike action. They have also involved extensive legal action - the various levels of which have been confusing for many observers. This document is a plain English summary of the state of play in the various current and recent disputes with the company.

February 2000. Two years have passed since the inaugural meeting of the global network of trade unions in Rio Tinto operations. Unfortunately, the problems that drew these unions together have not been resolved; they have become worse.

The CFMEU was pleased to host the meeting which was called by the ICEM - the international union organisation representing mineworkers worldwide. Delegates met in Canberra, Australia on 7-8 February. For a copy of the final communiqué from the meeting, please click here.

24 January 2000. In December 1999 a senior OECD committee criticised the Australian Government's handling of a formal complaint about Rio Tinto's abuse of its workers' rights. On 24 January 2000 the Australian Council of Trade Unions therefore renewed the complaint. Moreover, new material has been added to the complaint. In November 1999 Rio Tinto was found to have unlawfully victimised trade union representatives for carrying out union activity.

In April 1998 the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the peak body of trade unions in Australia, lodged a detailed formal complaint with the Australian Government under the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises of the OECD, the group of advanced industrialised nations. The Australian Government was required to act on this complaint under its obligations as a member of the OECD. In February 1999 - almost ten months later - it replied stating that the company had complied with Australian law (laws which have been found to be in breach of core conventions of the United Nations International Labour Organisation) and that Rio Tinto was not really a multinational company because the Australian operation was not a full subsidiary of the UK parent company. It declared the matter "resolved". The ACTU decided to pursue the complaint with the Government of the United Kingdom, where Rio Tinto has its head office, and with the OECD's Committee for Investment and Multinational Enterprises (CIME).

It is clear that Rio Tinto's conduct in Australia is in breach of numerous parts of the guidelines, which seek to set the benchmark for acceptable corporate conduct for multinational enterprises based in OECD nations.

The case at the OECD level has been handled by the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (to which the ACTU is affiliated. TUAC's formal request for "clarification" of the Guidelines in this particular case was dealt with in September and December, with CIME issuing its decision on 10 December. The ruling says that compliance with Australian laws is not sufficient for compliance with the Guidelines, and that Rio Tinto is a multinational enterprise.

It is now clear that the Australian Government must deal with the substance of the ACTU's complaints about Rio Tinto's conduct under the Guidelines.

For a copy of the OECD decision (in pdf format requiring Acrobat Reader software to read) please click here.

A copy of TUAC's formal request to the OECD, with supporting documentation, (as an OECD paper dated July 1999) is available here as a pdf document.

August 1999: Rio Tinto claims that one of the reasons it doesn't need (or want) trade unions in its workplaces is that all workers are treated fairly through its Fair Treatment System. This page is a summary of a recent decision by an independent arbitrator that is sharply critical of the FTS.

On 12 May 1999 Rio Tinto plc held its Annual General Meeting in London. The Australian part of the dual-listed company, Rio Tinto Ltd., held its AGM on 27 May in Perth. The CFMEU and others were there to let shareholders know of the unsavory practices the company is up to around the world.
Click here or on the heading for more news and pictures.

Rio Tinto - Behind the Facade

The ICEM has released the second of its major reports on Rio Tinto to coincide with the 1999 Annual General Meetings of the company.

Rio Tinto - Behind the Facade follows up the landmark Tainted Titan report released in May 1998 (and also available from this site).

The report chronicles Rio Tinto's continuing connections with human rights abuses, particularly in Indonesia and Australia; its failings in worker health and safety; and its large scale pollution of the environment. The report also shows that Rio Tinto's financial performance declined dramatically in 1998 and that 1999 is likely to be a grim year.

The company's much-vaunted statement of business practice - The way we work - comes in for special attention. The document is exposed as little more than a public relations exercise, with no reference to the vast majority of international standards and conventions which should govern company operations, and no external mechanisms for monitoring, enforcement or feedback.

The report is available for downloading in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format by clicking here or on the picture of the report on the left. It is about 450K. If you need to obtain a copy of the necessary Adobe Acrobat reader software (available free) click on the button below.

Sydney: Pastor Bill Crews has dedicated his life to working with Australia's homeless, poor, lost and abandoned. So when he sat down to plan how his Exodus Foundation could bring a bit of Christmas cheer to the needy, he decided to write to the Top 50 companies listed by the Australian Stock Exchange.

Among them was Rio Tinto with a capitalisation listed at $12 billion (on the Australian sharemarket - excluding the majority of shares listed with the UK company).

Pastor Crews appealed – and this is a direct quote from the letter Rio Tinto received – “for business to open their hearts to help disadvantaged people”, at least this once at Christmas.

In his appeal to Rio Tinto and the other corporate giants, Pastor Crews pointed out that “with four in every 10 children facing a Christmas with no presents because of poverty, your donation could make the day brighter for some and the whole year brighter for others”.

The world's most powerful mining company not only refused to demonstrate any sense of community goodwill, even at Christmas, it did not grant Pastor Crews the courtesy of a reply.

The scandal was exposed when Pastor Crews alerted the media to the heartless display by Rio Tinto and the other greedy Scrooge-like corporations. It was first reported in the Sun-Herald newspaper on 20 December. Public reaction was overwhelming in condemning this disgusting corporate greed, described by Pastor Crews as a “scandal and un-Australian”.

An outraged public showed the real Aussie Christmas spirit by digging deep and ensuring that Pastor Crews was able to provide a wonderful Christmas for more than 2,000 poor and needy Australians.

At least in the classic novel by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, Scrooge finally recognised the error of his greedy ways and reformed. But don't hold your breath waiting for the likes of Rio Tinto to become reasonable corporate citizens. Throughout its blood-stained history Rio Tinto has shown a single-minded ruthlessness in pursuit of its insatiable appetite for profits and there is no way that it would let something as sentimental as the needs of the poor and disadvantaged at Christmas get in the way of that.

The ICEM, a major international trade union organisation based in Brussels, Belgium, launched its own Rio Tinto campaign site to coincide with the the London Annual General Meeting of the company on 13 May 1998. Click here or on the ICEM logo to go to the ICEM's home page which features the Rio Tinto campaign.

Rio Tinto - Tainted Titan

In May 1998 the ICEM released a major report on Rio Tinto to coincide with the 1998 Annual General Meetings of the company. Entitled Rio Tinto - Tainted Titan: The Stakeholders Report 1997, the report is a heavily researched and comprehensive document detailing the company's many problems. In addition to sections on human rights, occupational health and safety and environmental abuses, the report also covers the operational problems of the company and the downside risks for investors that the systematic failures of the company are generating.

The report is available for downloading in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format by clicking here or on the picture of the report on the left. It is 1.6 MB in size so be prepared for a wait unless you have a fast modem! If you need to obtain a copy of the necessary Adobe Acrobat reader software (available free) click on the button below.

Trade unions from Australia and other nations joined environment, development and other community campaign groups in protesting at the Annual General Meeting of Rio Tinto in London on 13 May and Melbourne on 27 May 1998.

Questions asked about Rio Tinto's corporate conduct in parliaments across the world.

On Monday 6 April 1998 a day of protest action was jointly staged in the United Kingdom and Australia. Click here for full details.

Risk dealing with the world's largest mining company alone and you might as well walk . .

Click on the film title for further information including how to get your copy.

These facts sheets don't tell you everything there is to know about Rio Tinto. But they give you a good idea of the breadth of the company's operations and the legion of bad practices and outright abuses of human rights and environmental protection that the company has engaged in or been associated with.

Rio Tinto claimed in its 1997 Annual Report that it "respects the right of employees worldwide to choose for themselves whether or not they wish to be represented collectively". The assertion is repeated in the 1998 statement of business practice The way we work.

From 7-9 February 1998 trade unions from Rio Tinto operations around the world (those where unions have not yet been excluded) met in Johannesburg, South Africa. For a copy of the CFMEU presentation to that conference, click here. For media releases including photos by the ICEM, the international union organisation that sponsored the conference, click here and here. The CFMEU also prepared two short briefing papers for media and trade unions at the conference. For a description of Rio Tinto's dispute with Australian coal mineworkers, click here. For a description of Rio Tinto's global operations and disputes in countries other than Australia, click here.

This paper, originally written in September 1997 for Japanese energy unions with whom the CFMEU has fraternal relations, provides background information on the major industrial dispute at the Hunter Valley No. 1 mine.

There is a host of other information on Rio Tinto and the CFMEU's dispute with the company at this site. Please check under the Media Releases, the CFMEU Faxes and the Policy/Backgrounders sections for lots more information about what Rio Tinto has been doing to its workforce in the name of so-called "workplace reform" and "increasing efficiency".

An excellent site detailing some of Rio Tinto's environmental and human rights abuses in Indonesia is the material by Project Underground concerning the Freeport copper mine in which Rio Tinto is a major stakeholder.

The World Development Movement campaigns for social justice for people in developing countries, including those affected by mining operations.

Friends of the Earth in the United Kingdom is campaigning on various Rio Tinto projects. You can link to their campaign site here.

Nobody knows more about the seedy side of Rio Tinto around the world than PARTiZANs (People against the activities of RTZ). The book "Plunder!"details things that the company doesn't want known about its operations in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Australia . .