Solidarity with Rio Tinto Locked-Out Miners

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.

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Salt Lake’s “Climate of Change” conference infused with spirit of Joe Hill

A diverse group of trade unionists, environmentalists, academics and social justice activists gathered at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City for the third annual “Climate of Change” conference.

Conference organizers – The Healthy Planet Mobilization Committee* – kicked it off with a well attended press conference on Friday night featuring dozens of scientists, climate experts and the former Mayor of Salt Lake City. All the speakers took a strong public stand against a resolution adopted by the Utah House of Representatives earlier this month that rejected scientific evidence of global warming, criticized federal efforts to deal with it, and called for the state to abstain from regional collaboration to reduce carbon emissions. The press event was well covered by the local media.

On Saturday morning, former CWA Rep. and well-known author Steve Early and I opened up the conference with a workshop on reviving the labor movement and building labor – community coalitions. The roughly sixty participants were drawn from a great mix of local union leaders and staffers, rank-and-file activists, students, faculty members, and longtime Salt Lake City progressives. There was a lively exchange on topics like labor-environmental coalitions, based on the emerging Blue Green Alliance model,

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