IndustriALL is urging investors to demand the truth from mining and metals giant Rio Tinto about its pattern of conflict.
A group of 25 analysts and investors is visiting with Rio Tinto in North America this week. They will attend Rio Tinto presentations and tour some of company’s mines and smelters.
“Rio Tinto has established a pattern of conflict with key stakeholders at its operations in North America and around the world,” said IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan.
IndustriALL has released “Unsustainable: The ugly truth about Rio Tinto” which documents Rio Tinto’s failure to live up to its own sustainability claims. The report is available at http://www.industriall-union.org/riotinto .
“Rio Tinto brands itself as sustainable in order to maintain access to profitable opportunities. Its failure to live up to its own sustainability claims potentially jeopardizes that access and is of material concern to the investment community,” added Özkan.
The report documents how Rio Tinto’s conflictual approach to labor relations provoked prolonged labor disputes at two of the sites the analysts and investors will visit, the Boron borate mine and the Alma smelter.
The report also documents how Rio Tinto has alienated a broad array of stakeholders through uranium spills, worker deaths, environmental violations and a lack of respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, including at its Resolution Copper project in Arizona.
IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, including thousands of workers employed by Rio Tinto in nineteen countries.
