Indonesia: IndustriALL calls on Rio Tinto to publicly state what it will do to end worker deaths at Grasberg mine
IndustriALL have called for Rio Tinto to state what it is doing to address safety concerns at the Indonesian Grasberg mine after 38 workers died in the last 2 years. Rio Tinto is a participant in a joint venture interest at the mine which is majority owned, and operated, by Freeport-McMoran through its operating subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia.
In November 2014 we invited Rio Tinto to respond to the concerns raised by IndustriALL which it did on 17 November. It noted that it takes health and safety "extremely seriously" and that "senior Rio Tinto leaders have visited the site, shared our company knowledge and provided practical advice to support Freeport's actions" on worker safety. On 20 November IndustriALL sent a rejoinder to that response, stating that it was "extremely disappointed by Rio Tinto’s continued refusal to speak publicly about what it will do to end the string of deaths at...Grasberg" and called on Rio Tinto to "seriously address" the issue. We again invited Rio Tinto to respond to the rejoinder. On 1 December Rio Tinto informed us that it had "nothing further to add to its previous response."