Chinese mine treating PNG workers 'like slaves'

The Australian ^ | February 09, 2007 | Rowan Callick

[Mount Athos]

LOCAL workers building China's $1billion nickel mine in Papua New Guinea are being treated like slaves and paid just $4 a day, according to PNG Labour Secretary David Tibu, who is threatening to shut the site down. Following a surprise visit to the site in Madang province, Mr Tibu said health and safety conditions at the project were far below international standards.

Mr Tibu said workers were sometimes being paid for overtime with tins of fish rather than with money, that canteen arrangements were not fit for pigs and that toilet facilities were so inadequate and public that employees instead used nearby bushes out of embarrassment.

Construction began at the site a few months ago. Fifty workers went on strike over poor working conditions last month and called on the Madang provincial government to take action. Mr Tibu's visit followed.

The Ramu mine is China's first big project in Australia's neighbourhood. The way in which it is developed is being closely watched, with landowners expressing concern that the Chinese Government-owned Metallurgical Group Corporation (known as MCC) would bring in a large labour force from China.

Mining Minister Sam Akoitai told the PNG Post-Courier yesterday that mine construction should not have begun, because the owner had yet to submit, let alone gain approval for, its feasibility study or its development proposal.

He said approval for construction would depend, among other issues, on satisfying the Chief Inspector of Mines that the project would meet standards required by the Mining Safety Act.

The mine aims to produce 32,800 tonnes of nickel and 3200 tonnes of cobalt a year. The project won - under its original owner, Brisbane-based Highlands Pacific Group - a unique guarantee from the Government that its tax rate would stay constant.

[EagleUSA]

Such a shock! Communist China treating people like slaves? Unbelievable.

[Spok]

"paid just $4 a day"

This is absolutely useless information. If it was in Manhattan, they'd be under paid, but in some countries, $4 a day would make them millionaires. Although I suspect it is a slave wage if they're working for ChiComs, whose entire economy is based on slavery.

[massgopguy]

How do you say Captain Obvious in Mandarin?

[L98Fiero]

I suspect you will be treated better in China than New Guinea. My grandmother's church had missionaries refuse to go back for fear of death. Apparently they had been beaten and robbed pretty regualarly.

[coconutt2000]

And if it were an American company, there's be hell to pay.

[coconutt2000]

And if it were an American company, there'd be hell to pay.

[Uncle Miltie]

Matches a story out of Africa recently (WSJ front page) in which Chinese managers treated foreign workers worse than animals.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Wow, the chinese are so rich they import labor now?

[Eagle Eye]

$4/day is a small fortune to some third world residents and they'll voluntarily work for that rate.

[griswold3]

Jane Fonda- On November 21, 1970 she told a University of Michigan audience of some two thousand students, "If you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would some day become communist."
At Duke University in North Carolina she repeated what she had said in Michigan, adding "I, a socialist, think that we should strive toward a socialist society, all the way to communism. " -Washington Times July 7, 2000

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

PNG is not that inexpensive. The kina, trades at about 3-1 for the US dollar. So these people are making about $12 US a day.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ugly Chinese have replaced Ugly Americans.

[jonassen]

Although I suspect it is a slave wage if they're working for ChiComs, whose entire economy is based on slavery.

Back in the late 1800s when the average white American earned $4 a day, was that slavery too? Were those white Americans enslaved? You really need to review what slavery actually means. Figure of speech and hyperbole are for liberals, and Papua New Guinea needs to get a clue.

Countries on a lower development level have lower wages with respect to first world currencies, such as the dollar. This ain't brain science. In 50 years, the Chinese of today will tell their grandchildren "In my days, a dollar could buy a week's meal." Sound familiar?

[rlmorel]

ãˆÑ–¾èû

[Scrambler Bob]

Combine this with Zimbabwe's troubles and the news that the Chinese are eager to start copper mining there.

[callofduty]

Employee supply and demand.

The only reason American companies pay their miners well is because nobody wants the job to begin with.

I'm sure in Papua New Guinea there was no shortage of willing workers regardless of what it paid.

[Shots]

The only reason American companies pay their miners well is because nobody wants the job to begin with.

You have got to be kidding when mines hire the lines are long and I do mean long they average 16 to 20 dollars an that does not include the 11 perhour for benifits, which bring the wages up to 27/31.

[razorback-bert]

New Guinea's GNI is $660/yr. so $4 x312=$1248.

[Paul Ross]

Mining Minister Sam Akoitai told the PNG Post-Courier yesterday that mine construction should not have begun, because the owner had yet to submit, let alone gain approval for, its feasibility study or its development proposal.

Surprise! China's well-known respect for foreign regulations does not bear close scrutiny....