Additional reporting by Rand Wilson.
On Friday, April 16th, Jobs with Justice coalitions in Seattle, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Boston joined protesters in front of British Consulates in those cities to demand justice for 570 California miners who have been locked-out of work by the Rio Tinto mining corporation, a British-based mining conglomerate, since January 31, 2010 at the world’s 2nd largest borax mine in Boron, CA.
Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining companies, has a history of human rights abuses around the globe. In Boron, California, the company retaliated against employees, members of the ILWU, and instituted the “lock-out” after workers rejected a company ultimatum that included illegal contract demands and provisions allowing the company to convert good full-time jobs into part-time, temporary, and outsourced positions with little or no benefits.
“Today’s action was a powerful demonstration of solidarity by ILWU locals and other labor and social justice groups in the SF Bay Area for the mineworkers in Boron, which is in a relatively remote part of California,” said Gordon Mar of Jobs with Justice San Francisco.
These solidarity actions are a follow-up to a lively demonstration on April 15th at Rio Tinto’s Annual General Meeting in London, England, where a locked-out miner from California addressed shareholders.
“We want to show the working families of Boron, California that they have our support here in Utah and that we will hold these corporations accountable to the community they operate in,” said Marci Broumas, a member of Utah Jobs with Justice.
As part of their demonstration, Utah Jobs with Justice delivered a statement that called on, “the British consulate to press Rio Tinto to end their cruel and illegal lockout immediately, so that negotiations can resume in the spirit of fairness and good-faith bargaining that is required by U.S. law.”
In Boston, two representatives of the group went inside the Consulate’s offices and met with Chris Henderson, the Deputy Consul General, and his staff. IBEW Local 103 member John Brooks delivered a proclamation signed by the entire group calling on the Deputy Consul General to inform the British government about our outrage and to press Rio Tinto to end its cruel and illegal lockout immediately, so that negotiations can resume in the spirit of fairness and good-faith bargaining that is required by U.S. law. Deputy Consul General Henderson said he would comply.
“Corporations are destroying good jobs all across America today, but these locked-out families in California deserve special support because they’re fighting for the good jobs that America needs and taking-on a corporate bully like Rio Tinto,” said Russ Davis, Director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
Additional protests took place in Los Angeles, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. For more background information check out the cover story in The Nation, Labor War in the Mojave.
You can join the miners’ support group on Facebook.
