Labour Issues in Anglo American

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Anglo American is a UK public limited company headquartered in London. It is one of the world’s leading mining companies and it operates around the world especially in the continent of Africa where 76% of its workers live. Anglo American is a major producer of minerals such as diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore and coal. In 2008, a report by Mr. Philip Mattera, a private investigator, investigates the track record of Anglo American. He claimed the company has a series of abuse of labour rights, safety and environmental protection, to name a few in the past (Mattera, 2008). The Renewable Resources Coalition and Nunamta Aulukestai commissioned the report in which both are pressure groups opposing a project by Anglo American in Alaska (Mattera, 2008). This paper will focus on the labour issues claimed by the report based on the corporate social responsibility frameworks of utilitarian, libertarian and deontology.

Mr. Matera claimed that over 220 mine workers have died in Anglo American mining operation in a five years span from 2003 to 2008, among other workplace safety abuse and labour abuse. The death cause varied from lethal fumes of polyurethane foam to methane gas explosion (Mattera, 2008).

In utilitarian theory, the highest principle of morality is to maximise overall balance of pleasure and happiness over pain (Sandel, 2010). Jeremy Bentham founded the philosophy of utilitarian, where the maximisation of utility is the measure used in deciding right and wrong (Mill, 1998). In utilitarian view, the fatalities of those miners are justified because the benefits from the mine operations would be greater than the death statistics. This is due to the fact that other stakeholder such as the company itself and industrial users may...

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...d in a manner that is appropriate for the labour to work safely. Labour unions and pressure groups have to continuously ensure that the public and especially the companies and authorities of the problem faced by the miners if there is any and it must be done with due diligence.

Works Cited

1. Mattera, P. (2008). Anglo American’s Track Record: Rhetoric or Reality? [Online]
Available at: http://www.infomine.com/library/publications/docs/Mattera2008.pdf [Accessed 10th December 2013]

2. Sandel, M. J. (2010). Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? London: Penguin Books.

3. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.

4. Anglo American (2008). Anglo American: The Reality [Online]
Available at: http://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Plc/media/publication/guides/AngloAmericanTheReality.pdf [Accessed 10th December 2013]

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