Rio Tinto review finds rape, pressure for sex persists at miner

MELBOURNE, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Mining major Rio Tinto (RIO.AX), said cases of rape and sexual assault at the company persist, a report into the company’s culture showed on Wednesday, two years after the industry faced an Australian state inquiry for its poor treatment of women.

A Western Australian state government report in 2022 recommended sweeping changes after finding sexual harassment and assault were rife in the sector, detailing what it said was horrifying behavior against women in the mining industry.

Australian miners including iron ore giants BHP (BHP.AX), and Fortescue (FMG.AX),  have since taken steps to address sexual harassment, which has been prevalent at remote fly-in fly-out (FIFO) mining operations like Pilbara iron ore.

As part of those measures, Rio Tinto undertook a cultural assessment in early 2022 that outlined a culture of bullying, harassment and racism at the global mining giant, and recommended 26 steps the company should take to improve.

Two years on, an external progress report found Rio had implemented the majority of those changes although there was more work to do at the global miner, which employs some 57,000 people across 35 countries.

The report found eight people reported experiencing actual or attempted sexual assault or rape, compared to five people in 2021. Thirty-two people reported experiencing pressure or requests for sex or sexual acts, compared to 37 people in 2021. The majority of people in both cases were women, the report found.

“I read the report with mixed emotions for the continued hurt that people feel and the unsafe behaviors that people are experiencing,” Rio’s Australia chief, Kellie Parker, told Reuters.

“But I’m also encouraged by how much more people are empowered to speak up.” The miner has fired a “significant” number of people for those behaviours, Parker said, declining to elaborate. “It’s a multi-year journey … We are staying the course.”

The report found half or nearly half of respondents perceived improvements with bullying, sexual harassment and racism.

However the percentage of people experiencing bullying rose to 39% from 31%, and 7% of survey respondents experienced sexual harassment in the past year, steady from 2021.

That was partly due to increasing retaliation in the form of gendered bullying as a response to Rio Tinto’s efforts to promote gender diversity and inclusion, it said.

One measure the miners have taken to combat harassment is to improve the gender balance in one of Australia’s highest-paid industries. Just over a fifth of their workers now are women, up from 16.3% in 2018, according to Australian government figures.

BHP set a target to get 40% of omen in its workforce by 2025, up from 17.6% females in 2016. Having hired some 10,500 more women since then, it has raised female staffing to 37.1% as of this year.

“Absolutely, the Tier One miners have improved, there’s no doubt about it … but there is still a long way to go,” said Shane Roulstone of Western Mine Workers’ Alliance, which represents workers in Australia’s iron ore region.

Majors have put policies in place and taken concrete actions to cut harassment and improve their gender balance, he said.

However, industry culture was still “pretty poor”, mostly due to middle management and an inconsistent approach among second tier miners and contractors, some of which had made no attempt to stamp out harassment, he said.

Contractors make up 30% of workers among tier one miners, around half of employees at second tier miners and almost all of the workers at small miners, he estimated.