In a strong show of solidarity, the UFCW (the retail stores and food union) delivered 500 bags of groceries to miners who have been locked out of their jobs by their boss, Rio Tinto.
From the International Longshore Workers Union press advisory:
Contributions from millions of working families across America will help buy groceries for nearly 600 families who were locked-out of their jobs on January 31st by the Rio Tinto Corporation, a giant foreign-owned mining firm that operates one of the world’s largest borax mines near the town of Boron in California’s Mojave Desert.
Rio Tinto decided to lock-out the workers in an effort to starve families into signing an agreement that would let the company convert good full-time jobs into part-time temporary positions that pay little or no benefits.
“We’re just like everyone else in America who’s tired of seeing good jobs turned into ‘junk jobs’ with no benefits,” says Terri Judd, a military veteran who operated heavy equipment at the mine for more than a decade until Rio Tinto put her and almost 600 other workers out of work on January 31st.
“We’re drawing the line in Boron, because this same sort of thing is happening to working families all over America,” said Judd. “It has to stop somewhere, and it might as well be here in Boron. We’re doing this for our families, our communities, and for everyone who agrees with us that ‘part-time America won’t work.”
Foreign-owned Rio Tinto reported net profits of nearly $4.87 billion dollars in 2009, an increase of 33% over net earnings of $3.68 billion reported in 2008. Rio Tinto’s mine in Boron produces almost all of the nation’s borax, a versatile mineral used to make many products, including glass, wood preservatives, fire retardants, laundry detergents, and fertilizers.
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2010/02/235158.phpThe prior contract expired two months ago. Rio Tinto presented a contract offer on January 28, along with a lockout ultimatum; union employees would be barred from working if they did not ratify the offer before January 31, which they failed to do.
When union workers showed up Sunday the entrance to the mine was blocked not only by private security personnel, but also by Kern County Sheriff’s deputies clad in riot gear.
Rio Tinto immediately brought in hundreds of replacement workers, provided by J.R. Gettier & Associates, a Delaware company that bills itself as a specialist in labor strike security and replacement workforce. Gettier personnel were also those blocking the entry of the locked-out workers.
Rio Tinto’s proposed system, called “The Matrix,” was instituted over the last five years at the company’s Kennecott copper mine in Utah. In practice, it means that the mining outfit can change schedules, cut hours or force overtime, and eliminate work classifications at a whim. Seniority rights are junked.
http://socialequality.com/node/724The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the Spanish government...
The company has operations on six continents but is mainly concentrated in Australia and Canada, and owns gross assets valued at $81 billion through a complex web of wholly and partly owned subsidiaries.<3> In 2007, the company was valued at $147 billion.<4><5>
As of March, 2009, Rio Tinto is the fourth-largest publicly listed mining company in the world with a market capitalisation of approximately $34 billion,<3> and was listed in Fortune magazine's 2008 Global 500 ranking of largest worldwide companies by revenue at number 263.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_GroupJan du Plessis (born 1954<1>) is the non-executive Chairman of British American Tobacco's board of directors,<2> and a non-executive director of the Lloyds TSB Group.<3> du Plessis was placed tenth in The Times 2006 Power 100,<4> a list which rates the most powerful people in British business.<5>
Jan, an Afrikaner,<6> grew up near Cape Town, South Africa.<2> He studied at the University of Stellenbosch for degrees in commerce and law...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_du_PlessisThe du Plessis family in South Africa
The founding father of the du Plessis family in South Africa, Jean Prieur du Plessis, arrived in the Cape in 1688. He was a French Huguenot who fled France to Holland before coming to South Africa with the Hugenuets.
Probably the most famous (infamous?) of the du Plessis name was Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu (September 10, 1585 - December 4, 1642), the villian of a number of books and movies, including The Three Musketeers.
The du Plessis family name traces back to around 1200 with Guilaume du Plessis, seigneur (lord) of Breux and seigneur of La Vervolière.
http://duplessisrsa.com/content/view/12/2/ 
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