Home › Against Extractive Industries

Against Extractive Industries

Issue No : 46  January-April 2012

  • No Economic and Job Growth in Mining Industry in the Philippines, Only Plunder Need to Run
    The Philippines has about $840 billion (about P36.64 trillion at P43.62 per US dollar)-US$ 1 trillion worth of mineral deposits which include gold, copper, nickel, chromite, manganese, silver and iron according to the US Department of State estimate. The country ranks first in the world with the largest iron ore deposit, third in gold, fourth in copper, fifth in nickel and sixth in chromite deposits. In a country where more than 10 million able-bodied people are either unemployed or underemployed and about 30 million experience hunger, the nagging questions that needed to be answered are: Has the increase in number of mining companies and gross production value in mining resulted in increase in jobs? Or has this resulted to the improvement in livelihood of communities where mining operations exist? Do mining operations spur growth for majority of Filipino people? The answer to all questions is NO.
  • Mining Sector and its Future in India
    India is endowed with huge resources of many metallic and non-metallic minerals. Since independence in 1947, there has been a rapid growth in the mineral production both in terms of quantity and value. Currently, India produces as many as 87 minerals, which include 4 fuel, 10 metallic, 47 non-metallic, 3 atomic and 23 minor minerals (including building and other materials). The mining activities are extremely poorly regulated despite the fact that as early as 1948, the founding fathers of the constitution realized this need. During the Constitutional debates, they said as early as in 1948, “Industrialisation has brought in its wake an ever-increasing demand for mineral resources. These resources are non-replenishable and mostly scarce. Proper control over regulation and development of mines and minerals is therefore, a matter of national concern.” Today over 80,000 mines operate illegally as against nearly 10,000 legitimate leases. Only a third of the legal mines actually report to the Indian Bureau of Mines, the regulator.
  • The Case of Freeport Mc-Morran Copper & Gold Inc. in Indonesia’s Extractive Industry
    This article attempts to describe the reality of extractive industries in Indonesia under the control and domination of transnational corporations, that making wealth in an unimaginable amount from a mining hotspot where the majority of the population are in poverty, experiencing various kinds of land-grabbing, eviction from their communal land, and the workers earn low wages with poor working conditions. The article puts the extractive industry in the context of relation between the state and the massive expansion of transnational corporations (TNCs) in order to obtain raw materials for profit, where TNCs do land-grabbing and natural resources by using the imperative power of the state, either through the establishment of regulation, as well as the mobilization of the state-owned violence means. In the accumulation of extraction industries, the land-grabbing to get raw materials resources currently is an inherent and dialectical process. The case of Freeport Mc-Morran Copper & Gold Inc will be elaborated as a case study.
  • Trans-National Corporations in Extractive Industry and the Struggle Against them: The Case of Malaysia
    This seems to have been what happened with Lynas Corporation Limited, the Australian TNC, who decided to ship rare earths ore from its mine in Mount Weld to Malaysia, where it was to be processed into highly sought after rare earths metals at its facility in Gebeng Industrial Zone, in Pahang, Malaysia. Lynas, however, states that the reason for doing so is different – better infrastructure and facilities. Medical examinations on children in the area found that nearly 40% of them suffered from lymph node diseases, turbinate congestion and recurrent rhinitis. Seven of the leukaemia victims have since died
  • Australian Mining Companies' Resistance to Collective Bargaining
    Due to its aridity, Australia remains one of the world’s most sparsely-populated countries, with a density of 2.8 people per square kilometre. The result is that Australians - 0.3% of the world’s population – today sit atop enormous reserves of natural resources, including 23% of the world’s known uranium reserves and 13% of the world’s known iron ore reserves. Moreover the country’s political stability, advanced extractive processes and ease of doing business make it attractive to buyers of natural resources. With all of this relative abundance, Australia’s mining industry sometimes appears to live in its own universe. Mining companies are vigorously anti-union in outlook and have a long history of victimising or even sacking union Delegates.
  • Luviana Ariyanti: The Struggle of a Female Journalist for Labour Rights in Indonesia
    “It has been months since I was struck by the fact that I was being non-job as a result of my struggle for better working situation and welfare for my co-workers and other employees, and especially for initiating a worker union in my workplace, yet until today I am still feeling so bothered and weary. It is such an irony that a TV Station that once I thought was a human right defender, is actually just another human rightviolentand UNION-BUSTER!” Luviana Ariyanti
  • Regional Round-up
    Regional Round-up covering current issues in South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh
  • Editorial: Against Extractive Industries
    In a very real sense, the extractive industries represent the earliest phase of ‘global factory’, the beginning of the basic production circuit, and the foundation of the web of global production networks that form todays’ global economy. The extractive industries, the ‘holes maker in the ground’ as Peter Dicken put it correctly, become strategic sector that supply raw materials to many other industries. There is almost none of modern production disconnects from the extractive industries for raw materials.

ISSN 1815-9389

Issue Number 80

January-April 2012

@Copyright 2012 Asian Labour Update; all rights reserved

 

EDITORIAL TEAM

Sanjiv Pandita, ApoLeong, Omana George,

Sri Wulandari, Sally Choi, Fahmi Panimbang

 

CONTRIBUTORS AND EDITORIAL BOARD

· Daisy Arago -- Executive Director, Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), Quezon City, Philippines. Email: daisy.arago@gmail.com. www.ctuhr.org

· Abu Mufakhir -- Researcher with Sedane Labour Resource Center (Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane, LIPS), Indonesia. Email: abusurd_13@yahoo.com

· Charles Hector -- Human right activist, based in Malaysia. Email: easytocall@yahoo.com

· Michael Walker -- Union official in Sydney, Australia.  Email: radicalcentre11@gmail.com

· Yohana Sudarsono  -- Activist with Independent Educator Union (INERU) Indonesia - Affiliated to Federasi Serikat Pekerja Kerakyatan Karawang- Member of KSN (National Union Confederation) Indonesia. Email: ineru.indonesia@yahoo.com, yosudarsono@ymail.com

· The Research Institute for Alternative Workers Movements(RIAWM), South Korea (http://www.pssp.org)

· Noel Colina --Executive Director at Institute for Occupational Health and Safety Development  (IOHSAD), Philippines

· Sedane Labor Resource Center(Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane, LIPS), Indonesia  

· Amirul Haque Amin -- President of National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF)

 

ASIAN LABOUR UPDATE (ALU) is a quarterly news bulletin on labour issues in southern and eastern Asia. It is prepared and published by the Asia Monitor Resource Centre Ltd (AMRC), a non-profit, pro-labour, non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong.

Articles and information in ALUmay be reproduced in non-profit publications with clear citations, credit to author/s and ALU. For online reprints, please notify us of the relevant URL; for printed matter, please send one hard copy to the address below.

ALU articles do not necessarily reflect views and positions of AMRC.

Opinions to the editor are encouraged. Donation can be made by credit card on our web site (URL below), or send  a cheque made out to ‘Asia Monitor Resource Centre Ltd’, or request an invoice. Please send enquiries to:

The Editor

Asia Monitor Resource Centre
Flat 7, 9/F, Block A
Fuk Keung Industrial Building
66-68 TongMi Road
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2332-1346
Fax: (852) 2385-5319

Email: amrc@amrc.org.hk
 URL: http://www.amrc.org.hk

Download PDF file