Undermining the Rights and Safety of Workers

Dirty Metals Undermining the Rights and Safety of Workers Mineworker in South Africa / n October 9, 2003, the south face of the Grasberg gold mine in West Papua, Indonesia, collapsed. OEight workers died and five others were injured. Government investigators turned up evidence that in the days leading up to the accident, seismic data had led mine operators to suspect that slippage was immi- nent, and that key machinery—but not workers—had been moved from below the unstable zone. These were not the first deaths at the Grasberg mine, the largest open-pit gold mine in the world. In May 2000, a landslide at the mine’s waste dump claimed four lives, prompting environmentalists and government Photo: ICEM officials to question the safety of recent production increases.46 In 1983, the chief safety engineer of an unnamed South Rock falls, tunnel collapses, fires, heat exhaustion, and African mining corporation told the Economist that “produc- other dangers claim the lives of over 15,000 miners every tion is more important than safety.” No one in a similar posi- year. (Miners in the notoriously dangerous coal mines of tion would go on record with such a statement today. And it China may account for up to half of these deaths.) is true that over the past 20 years, health and safety condi- According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), tions have improved in large-scale corporate operations in deaths within the mining sector as a whole (both metals most countries. Between 1984 and 2001, for instance, the and coal) account for 5 percent of all worker deaths on the average annual death rate in South African gold mines fell job, even though the sector employs just under 1 percent of from 1.23 per 1,000 workers to 1.05 per 1,000, while the all workers worldwide. But these are just the reported reported accident rate declined by one-third. (For conditions deaths; a substantial share of mining deaths go unrecorded. at small-scale sites, see page 25.) But even so, mining remains The data on injuries are even less reliable but it’s likely that one of the world’s most dangerous professions.47 hundreds of thousands of serious injuries are sustained 24 Undermining the Rights and Safety of Workers Small-Scale Mining, Large-Scale Risk fair share of the world’s min- Mercury is a neurotoxin that has Guiana, for instance, the Wayana Aing is done, not by big corpo- been shown to impair brain func- people live downstream from rations, but by individual people, tion in fetuses and children. People small-scale gold mining operations families, and collectives. This part continually exposed to it may and suffer from mercury poison- of the industry, which is largely experience loss of coordination ing. Their hair sample tests show confined to the developing world, and memory, personality change, mercury levels two to three times is known as “artisanal and small- and stupor. Mercury has also been higher than World Health scale mining,” or ASM. ASM covers linked to increases in miscarriages Organization limits. a range of activities. At the high and birth defects. In children, high Overall health and safety data for end are companies doing sophisti- levels of exposure correlate with ASM are sketchy, but the sector cated but small-scale mechanized lower intelligence and hearing loss. appears to experience a signifi- mining. But the overwhelming Mercury can also persist in the cantly higher accident rate than the majority of the sector’s workers are environment for decades in forms industry as a whole. Lack of train- found at the opposite end of the in which it is readily metabolized. ing and equipment lead to more spectrum: they are poor, untrained And it bioaccumulates—it builds frequent landslides, shaft collapses, miners often working their claims up in the fat of animals in increas- and accidents with explosives. In together with their families. Some ing concentrations at higher links matters of risk, ASM differs in of these miners are organized into of the food chain, with the result another important way from large- collectives of several hundred peo- that top predators (bears, for scale mining: many injuries in ple. All told, there are enormous example, or people) tend to absorb ASM are suffered by women and numbers of them: an estimated 13 the highest concentrations of it. children—a reflection of their million people are directly But in poor communities, where widespread presence in the sector. employed in the sector—as there is little information on such Children, for example, are fre- opposed to only around 2.75 mil- hazards, and where in any case, quently employed underground lion in industrial metals mining. people cannot afford to buy safety because of their small size. Women ASM produces a sizeable share of equipment, few precautions are make up an estimated 10 to 20 the world’s gem stones and pre- taken. Amalgamation is often done percent of the above-ground ASM cious metals, especially gold. But at home, by women and children, workforce, and are often engaged these riches are produced at great while the men are out on the claim in the amalgamation process. cost to both the environment and digging more ore. The mercury is This poor safety record is due in human health. often handled with bare hands, part to a lack of legal recognition. and heated in the same pots used On both counts, the single greatest According to the International for cooking. Under such circum- threat within the sector is proba- Labour Organization, about 80 stances, it’s virtually impossible to bly mercury poisoning. Artisanal percent of the world’s small-scale avoid inhaling mercury vapor, and extraction of gold is done through mining is illegal. In many poor contaminating food and drinking a process called amalgamation, in countries, the laws against ASM water with the metal. Much of the which gold ore is heated in the haven’t successfully controlled it, mercury eventually escapes into presence of mercury. The mercury but they have discouraged poor soil and water, and once released it “amalgamates” with—adheres miners from seeking medical help tends to be mobile. In French to—the gold, thereby drawing it and other forms of assistance. The out of the ore. The gold remains miners’ reticence, in turn, makes it in more or less pure form after the difficult to understand their needs, mercury evaporates in the heat. or how the sector as a whole might best be managed.54 But in both its liquid and its vapor Photo: JATAM forms, mercury is extremely toxic. Small-scale gold mining, East 25 Kalimantan, Indonesia Dirty Metals every year in the mines. In 1996, Pik Botha, then South tions that employ them, the unions themselves are global- Africa’s Minister for Mineral and Energy Affairs, estimated izing. In 1998, for example, members of the 20-million- that in his country, each ton of gold mined costs 1 life and strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, 12 serious injuries.48 Mine and General Workers Union (ICEM) formed the In addition to the deaths and injuries on the job, mining can Rio Tinto Global Network to confront the labor practices cause a range of long-term disabilities, the most common of of the Rio Tinto Corporation. Rio Tinto operates in 40 which are respiratory problems such as silicosis. Caused by countries and is the world’s largest private mining compa- the inhalation of crystalline silica dust, a common air con- ny.The Global Network charges that the company has taminant in hardrock mines, silicosis can develop after only employed union-busting activities, some of which might seven months of exposure to the qualify as human rights abuses, dust, and can lead to complete at mines in various parts of the loss of lung function. It also world. Among the charges are greatly increases its victims’ sus- accusations that Rio Tinto fired ceptibility to other lung diseases, HIV-positive workers in such as tuberculosis, bronchitis, Zimbabwe; that in Brazil’s and lung cancer. Deep mines, Paracatu gold mine, it spied on such as South Africa’s gold mines, and fired union leaders, and which reach depths of 3.5 kilo- exposed workers to highly toxic meters (2 miles), present their own special set of risks. The levels of lead; and that it violated extreme heat—up to 60 degrees Photo: ICEM a two-day-old collective bargain- Celsius (140 degrees F)—and the ing agreement with mass layoffs high atmospheric pressure put miners at risk for certain in Utah. Although the company has signed the United kinds of nerve damage and high blood pressure. South Nations Global Compact, a code of corporate responsibil- African gold mines sometimes also extract uranium, thereby ity, the Global Network points out that Rio Tinto’s poli- exposing thousands of workers to unsafe radiation.49 cies do not yet acknowledge basic ILO standards, such as protections for collective bargaining.52 It’s not surprising that in some countries, the lifespan of miners is substantially lower than that of the general population. But even though it is growing more sophisticated, labor In Bolivia, for example, the average miner in the tin mines of organizing in the mines remains a difficult and risky busi- Potosí will live only 35 to 40 years, whereas the general popu- ness. The International Council of Metals and Mining lation’s life expectancy at birth is about 64 years.50 (ICMM), a confederation of the 25 largest mining companies, still does not recognize the rights of workers to bar- Almost all governments have enacted health and safety reg- gain collectively in its guiding principles.

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