MUA-ILWU solidarity April 22nd - Rio Tinto lockout of 600 miners Boron, California
MELBOURNE April 22nd @ 9.30am
Rio Tinto 25 Collins Street
MUA-ILWU solidarity event
Maritime Union of Australia 6-54 Ireland Street, West Melbourne, Victoria, 3003 Ph 03 9329 5477 Email muavic@mua.org.au
Media contact: Kevin Bracken,
MUA Victoria Branch Secretary Tel: 0400 077 563
WA workers rally against Rio 26 Mar 2010 Solidarity with locked out ILWU miners in the USA http://www.mua.org.au/news/wa-workers-rally-in-against-rio/
Construction, mining, maritime and metal workers rallied outside the Sheraton Hotel in Perth on Tuesday where Chief Executive of mining giant Rio Tinto Iron Ore, Sam Walsh, was hosting a business breakfast for Rio bosses. The protest was in support of around 600 locked out miners, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, in Boron, California, USA.
see video from event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJMnld47JJ0&feature=player_embedded
filmed by Alex Bainbridge http://www.youtube.com/user/AlexBainbridge
Information on the dispute * Rio Tinto made a profit of US $4.872 billion last year, up from its 2008 figure of $3.67 billion. * But it sacked 560 ILWU workers at Boron Mine (Mojave Valley, USA) on 29 January 2010. * Contract expired on 11 September 2009; negotiations for the new contract have broken down since. * Bus load security. * Replaced by scab labour.
Read Labor War in Mojave, THE NATION http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/davis
Watch VIDEO - MINERS STICK WITH THE UNION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBmDa445rU A
nd check out the miners' website http://boraxminers.com/index.html
Please send a solidarity email to the miners at this address -- boraxminers@yahoo.org
We are sure they will appreciate knowing that you are with them.
RELATED
February Melbourne Solidarity http://www.mua.org.au/news/rally-against-rio/F
ALSO
Vale Comrade "Chicka" Dixon http://www.mua.org.au/news/vale-comrade-chicka-dixon/
Australian Harry Bridges & the ILWU
For the ILWU, Bridges and Goldblatt drafted a union constitution that still is unique in the control it grants members. Many union constitutions give members very little beyond the right of paying dues in exchange for the services provided them by the union's securely entrenched bureaucrats. But the ILWU constitution guarantees that nothing of importance can be done without direct vote of the rank-and-file. No one can take ILWU office except through a vote of the entire membership; no agreement with employers can be approved except by a vote of all members; the union cannot take a position on anything without membership approval.
http://www.sfbg.com/bruce/2010/03/25/harry-bridges-working-class-hero