Un-Barrick-able conditions for laborers

May 22, 2009 • written by Dan Perlman (\'10)/Eastside Global Commentary Editor  
Filed under Global Commentary

[EXTENDED VERSION FROM APRIL/MAY 2009 ISSUE OF Eastside]

A beautiful wedding ring. A poisoned river. A dead friend. A smashed relic. ABX. A gold tennis bracelet. A life of servitude. A grey sky. A wasted day. A wasted life. A silk tie. A medal from the government. A namesake. A four-point-O CEO.

Barrick Gold is Canada’s largest publicly-traded company, “ABX” on the stock exchanges. Its payroll includes over 20,000 people. It is a leading supplier of gold to the world market.

Production of one average gold wedding ring produces 20 tons of waste, much of which is toxic with cyanide and other poisons. The exact tonnage is according to calculations done by members of No Dirty Gold, an NGO which is dedicated to developing a strong public awareness of the destructive side of the gold industry. Gold, it turns out, is actually one of the most awful substances on Earth to produce and sell, in terms of impact on the environment, workers rights, and the moral integrity of corporate executives and politicians. Who would have guessed?

The process of mining gold is both labor-intensive and toxin-rich. A mere ounce of pure gold comes with dozens of tons of hazardous sludge. Working in and around gold mines is dangerous and arduous-so is living near one, especially one of Barrick’s 27 operating mines on one of our five continents. The muck has a bad habit of seeping from the storage containers into local rivers and towns, especially near disenfranchised groups of people who don’t have accessible legal options in terms of challenging shaky safety practices. Specifically, those in New Guinea who live near the Porgera mine seem to have trouble adjusting to the influx of caustic goop creeping forth from the mine into the water and towns.

It must be so strange, having Barrick move in. Gold and precious metal deposits are discovered, the company gains land rights, and then the mining begins. Barrick utilizes the same environmentally disastrous techniques for acquiring gold as have been used for centuries, and so poison is brought in and landscapes are excavated in all varieties of efficient ways. The real kicker must be going to work there. Barrick employs private security forces at its mines, armed men answering to the Canadians from headquarters. Of course they have the legal right to defend company property, and to preserve the order of the operation.

Of course this means violence against the men and women who work the mines which were imposed upon them. It is almost impossible to discover the true extent of the actions of Barrick’s security forces-it requires independent researchers going into these relatively isolated communities, as no entrenched media is present. What they have found is disturbing, but not at all surprising. NGO researchers in Tanzania found that in August 1996 between 30,000-250,000 miners were forcibly evicted from the grounds of a different Canadian mining company, as around 50 men were buried alive by bulldozers. This came three years before Barrick absorbed the mine. Since then the local Tanzanians have staged an uprising which Barrick has violently repressed. Such is the way these things go. In Porgera over 39 have been killed, 2,000 injured, and 3,500 jailed by the mine-by the conditions of the labor itself or by the tough guys with the guns. In Peru the police join in beating and shooting protestors who oppose the factory-life imposed upon them by Barrick. Researching the flagrant misdeeds of transnational corporations running wild in the world will always yield horrors beyond enumeration.

Barrick is not really the node of the issue. If it wasn’t one company, it would be another; if it was not one indigenous people…the issue for us here, to be practical, is one of our own compliance. The government of Norway recently divested approximately $200 million from Barrick, citing ethical causes-this is a fairly bold thing. That is a national government asserting its independence from the frigid machinations of global corporatism. The government of Canada recently awarded the founder of Barrick with the Order of Canada-not so bold. When a company can expand outward in this world, it does. When it can skimp on wages, safety conditions, anything, it does. Calculating profit will do that. A government which chooses to not participate in the expansion and bolstering of a transnational corporation is a rare thing, because it stands to profit from abuse. Sometimes proponents of the more humane, philanthropic government or business initiatives try to make a case that benevolent treatment of workers and the environment turns out more profit in the long run anyway. Also, in this age of information, revolt and rebellion spread swiftly in the face of blatant mistreatment-hence the risings across the globe against Barrick mines. Obviously, higher wages serve to alleviate the vacuous waste of life which is the disciplinary life of the corporate world. What we, here, really need to do is quit fixating on a profit-mindset and realize that the human condition does not call for any such abuse as being forced into a mine-or for that matter a factory, or cubicle, especially not so that a an old man in Canada can boast about his philanthropy and the supposed good he has done for the world by bringing about all this. When that is accepted, what happens is what we are seeing today; corporations get nasty, and people get hurt. Who really deserve praise are the NGOs which provide the bulk of research and coverage on this, and the most powerful drives from those who have no power structure to command.

We must pay attention. The fact of the matter is, without a gold market (around 80% of the world’s gold is used for jewelry) this company would be sunk-but everyone loves gold. It is highly unlikely that everyone will simply stop buying gold. Even if that happened, with the transnational corporate market structures in place, most industries consist of similar impositions of virtual enslavement. What is the alternative though? That is what we, you and I in this country, are readily capable of creating. A global alternative to institutionalized exploitation. As we live day-to-day and move on to college and careers, always in mind should be the impact which each and every thing we use has on the world. We create this world through our actions-we are a part of all of it, good and bad. We do have a hand in Barrick’s profit-world. Just the same, we can have a hand in a human world.

Find a way to live with these mines on your conscience, or help create a way to live without them.