By John | August 11, 2008
Rio Tinto Group, one of the world’s largest mining operations comprises dual-listed sister companies Rio Tinto Limited (in Melbourne) and Rio Tinto plc (in London). Although each company trades separately, the two Rio Tintos operate as one business. Rio Tinto mines coal (about 20% of sales), iron, copper, uranium, industrial minerals (borax, salt, talc), gold, and diamonds. It also produces aluminum products through Rio Tinto Alcan. The company has operations worldwide but operates primarily in Australia and North America (accounting for about 40% each). Subsidiaries include Kennecotts Energy, Minerals, and Copper.
Recent Events
As of March 2008, Rio Tinto has rejected BHP Billiton’s $147.4 billion takeover bid on the grounds that in understates Rio’s worth.
According to a March 2008 in the UK’s Telegraph, Anglo American and Rio Tinto have refused to sign up to African joint ventures with Chinese companies unless they comply with Western environmental and human rights standards. Rio, led by chief executive Tom Albanese, and Anglo enforce their own standards on joint ventures around the world, but extending the policy to a series of recently announced projects with the Chinese should benefit Africa, where the Chinese have been heavily criticized for human rights and environmental violations. Anglo and Rio regard Chinese competition to develop mines in Africa as a serious economic issue. Both want to get closer to the Chinese state-owned companies that are their major customers and - in the case of Rio - the company’s biggest shareholder. Chinalco, the Chinese state-backed aluminum company, took a 9 per cent stake in Rio in January in a move that appeared designed to block a hostile bid for Rio from BHP Billiton, Rio’s biggest iron ore competitor. Rio said last month that it is planning a series of joint ventures with Chinalco, focused on Latin America and Africa.
As reported by the Financial Times in February 2008, The European Union has launched an investigation into possible anti-competitive practices at Rio Tinto, The European Commission had formally started proceedings against Alcan, the Canadian aluminium producer that Rio Tinto bought for Dollars 38bn last October. The Commission has sent a “statement of objections” to Alcan outlining its preliminary view that the group has abused its dominant position in the market for aluminium smelting technology.
Social Responsibility
According to the group Mines and Communities in January 2008, Marcelo Giraud, a geographer at the University of Cuyo in Argentina, and the Popular Assembly for Water of Mendoza, have condemned the exploitation of potassium salts, which is about to be authorized in the far southern area of the province, 5 kilometers from the Colorado River. The main concern is that the method of final disposition of the wastes has not as yet been established. Rio Tinto is doing the paperwork with the government to get authorization to start extracting potassium chloride in the area. The waste will be sodium chloride that will spread out over a surface of 210 hectares at an average of 40 meters in height. This is where one of the main problems lies according to Giraud, who maintains that this will have consequences, not only for the flora and fauna of the place, but also for water in the river. “The major problems are filtration from underneath, the susceptibility of its being blown away from above, and spillage. It has not been calculated what would happen in the case of an earthquake. It is 5 kilometers to the river from the deposits and the water could be affected, as well as those who use it for irrigation.”
A December 2007 article in the publication In These Times called “Acid-Mining Michigan” reports that Rio Tinto subsidiary Kennecott plans to develop a nickel sulfide mine beneath the fragile Salmon Trout River in the state’s Upper Peninsula. Kennecott, a Utah-based subsidiary of multinational Rio Tinto, has become a Michigan land baron. Since 1994, the corporation has acquired more than 500,000 acres and leased 26 percent of all mineral rights alone in Marquette County, which is in the northern Upper Peninsula. The company plans to develop a nickel sulfide mine-known as the Eagle Project-beneath the Salmon Trout River. These mines are referred to as “acid mines” because they produce sulfuric acid (battery acid) and release heavy metals-including arsenic, mercury and lead-into watersheds, destroying all life. There has never been a non-polluting sulfide mine near a watershed, according to the late Roscoe Churchill, a longtime Wisconsin anti-mining activist and author. On its website, Kennecott claims the Eagle Project would have a “relatively small footprint” that would have “less impact to the environment and community.” Since 2004, Kennecott has successfully lobbied the project and opponents, over the course of this four-year battle, have fought the corporate “green-wash campaign” by Kennecott. Mining opponents have provided more than 10,000 requesting a denial of Kennecott’s permit, and 117 local doctors have also signed a request for denial. Yet in February 2008 Kennecott received the final approvals needed in order to begin construction of the underground mine.
In August 2007 Bloomberg reported that Rio Tinto Group will get a new U.S.. federal appeals court review of whether it must face claims of human-rights violations at a mine in Papua New Guinea. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco today set aside a decision by a panel of three of its judges to reinstate a 2000 lawsuit by landowners claiming a company copper mine on Bougainville Island, once one of the world’s largest, contributed to the deaths of thousands of people. The case is currently pending.
Country Risk
The company has major operations/holdings in Australia, New Zealand and the US and also in Europe: Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK. In South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile. In Africa: Guinea, Namibia, South Africa Zimbabwe. In Asia/Oceania: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea. Rio Tinto has a strong mining presence in the United States, mainly in Utah, Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Nevada, California and Alaska. Rio Tinto’s Luzenac Group-a leading talc producer-has mines in Montana and Vermont. Kennecott Energy, one of the largest US coal producers, manages Rio Tinto’s coal mining interest in Colowyo Coal in Colorado, and has four wholly owned coal mines in the mountains of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. Rio Tinto owns Kennecott Minerals-a producer of gold, silver, zinc, copper and other base metals-which is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kennecott Minerals also has operations in Nevada and Alaska. Rio Tinto’s Copper group comprises Kennecott Utah Copper in the US and the company operates Borax’s Boron in California’s Mojave Desert. Rio Tinto also has a 40% interest in the Cortez/Pipeline gold mine in Nevada which is operated by Placer Dome.
The company operates in Zimbabwe, which is on the AFL-CIO Country Watch List. Countries on this list are either lacking labor legislation that recognizes fundamental worker rights or they have labor legislation, but it is not enforced. Additionally, the company conducts business in a number of other countries deemed sensitive by JMR, such as Brazil, Guinea and Papua New Guinea, due to factors concerning labor, political freedom, civil liberties, and human rights.
Workplace Issues
Rio Tinto has a highly unionized work force. Unions representing Rio Tinto workers include: the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), the Australian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), and others.
Despite current union participation, Rio Tinto has a history of being anti-union. Throughout the 1990s, Rio Tinto companies in Australia pursued an aggressive de-unionization policy that was in breach of ILO fundamental labor standards with respect to freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively. In that time they successfully de-unionized two thirds of their Australian operations. However, from the second half of 2000 they abandoned that policy. This was partly due to CFMEU running a shareholder campaign that won significant votes (20.3%) and partly because they looked at the world scene and decided that being openly anti-union might start to hurt their investment prospects in the medium to long term, and also their share price.
In 2000, an unprecedented worldwide shareholder campaign was launched by trade union federations against the union-busting activities of Rio Tinto. The Rio Tinto Shareholder Coalition (RTSC) submitted two resolutions for shareholder consideration at the company’s annual general meeting. The resolutions demanded that the company’s board of directors become more accountable to its shareholders by appointing an independent, non-executive deputy chairperson, and that it implement a worldwide code of labor practice complying with International Labor Organisation (ILO) standards. The proposals received considerable support from shareholders - specifically 23 percent for the board independence proposal. The Coalition comprised unions which collectively represent 41 million workers, including the US trade union congress (AFL-CIO); the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union of Australia (CFMEU); the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU); the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA); the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, and Mining Unions (ICEM); the British Trade Union Congress; and. The Coalition estimated at that time that trade unionists’ money accounted for approximately 19 percent of Rio Tinto’s shares, held mostly by pension funds.
In June of 2002, CFMEU and AMWU won a series of unfair dismissal test cases against Rio Tinto in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The result was a $25 million payout and 20 jobs. In December 2002, Rio Tinto lost an additional unfair dismissal case. It was revealed during this case that Rio Tinto’s motivation in the dismissals was to reduce union membership. On August 7, 2006, workers at the company’s Escondida mine in Chile went on a month-long strike after failed salary negotiations with management. (The mine is 30% owned by Rio Tinto; 57.5% owned by BHP Billiton; and 10% owned by a Japanese consortium.) The workers threatened strike action the previous week after the mine’s 2,000 workers rejected a pay offer. The Escondida Workers’ Union No. 1 was seeking a 13% salary increase due to high inflation rates. The Union also claimed that management has failed to address certain conditions for working women, particularly truck drivers. The month-long strike was ultimately resolved when management and the union reached a deal, but not before the strike had significant effects on the company’s copper production.
In 2003 the company was engaged in a dispute with US unions at Kennecott Copper. A new 6 year collective agreement was recently concluded, but then the company terminated 120 workers 2 days later. While the Kennecott Copper operations did have profitability concerns, the timing of the dismissals, and the particular workers targeted, arguably amount to discrimination on the basis of union activity, which is a breach or core ILO labor standards.
A report released by the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility in June 2006 stated that “while Rio Tinto has improved its social, environmental and ethical performance, there are still issues of serious concern.” The latest strike at the company’s Escondida mine in Chile, and the reinstatement of the human rights claim brought by Bougainville islanders in Papua New Guinea, it appears that Rio Tinto’s labor problems are significant and ongoing.
Assessment
Throughout its history, but in particular in recent decades, Rio Tinto has been the subject of criticism from civil society groups with respect to a range of environmental, social and labor issues. The company has made a massive effort to repair its image, but the question of whether it has made genuine changes or has been “green-washed” looms large.