All Female E-Mail at BHP Shows Mine Shift From Boys’ Club – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 22, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The e-mail Jacqui McGill received from one of her teams at a BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) coal mine in northern Australia contained great news: output delays were down 75 percent in a year.

That wasn’t the only reason she let out a whoop of excitement. “I did my little yeehaw, because every single person on the e-mail was a woman in a production role,” said McGill, asset president for two of the world’s biggest mining company’s operations in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.

“That’s the first time that’s happened in my career,” McGill, an industry veteran of more than 20 years, said of the July e-mail. “I have plenty of men in my business in senior roles, but I thought, that’s critical mass.”

Mining remains the most male-dominated business, with men holding more than 90 percent of executive positions. That’s starting to change, as retiring employees help open the $1 trillion industry’s door to female successors.

“It lags behind, it’s historically been male,” U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez said Sept. 10 in an interview in Melbourne. “They are missing out on great talent. They are missing out on recruiting some of the best and the brightest.”

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Glencore’s Female Director Marks Mining Industry Progress – by Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – July 17, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Mining companies, long laggards in appointing women to their boards, are starting to catch up under pressure from corporate governance groups and activist shareholders.

The latest is Glencore Plc, the Swiss commodity trader, which on June 26 appointed mining executive Patrice Merrin. Prior to her arrival, Glencore was the last company left on the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index with an all-male board. At the start of last year, five of the seven corporations on the U.K.’s FTSE-100 Index without women board members were mining companies. Now all five have at least one woman director.

“If a board has open spots and open-minded men, finding outstanding women is the easy part,” said Beth Stewart, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker and founder of executive search company Trewstar Corporate Board Services, which focuses on placing women directors.

Merrin’s appointment to the board of Glencore and her public endorsement of a goal of appointing women to a third of all board seats is a milestone for the $80 billion company run by billionaire Ivan Glasenberg and may open opportunities for more women directors.

Glasenberg’s company had been a lightening rod for criticism from activists, shareholders and U.K. business secretary Vince Cable for its all-male board.

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NEWS RELEASE: WEEKEND TO END WOMEN’S CANCERS

TORONTO – On Sept. 6 and 7, 2014, a handful of women representing the Women in Mining Toronto network will walk 60 km in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers, benefitting The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, one of the top five cancer research centres in the world. They seek the support of CMJ readers.

The WIM Toronto team is one of the top fund raisers in the event’s 11-year history, walking every year since 2007 and raising almost $478,000 in support of research, treatment and services. In our best year, the branch raised over $200,000 and were the top team in the walk!

This year they have set their sights even higher. The goal is to raise more than a quarter of a million dollars, and lift the cumulative total to $750,000.

WIM Toronto relies on individual and corporate support. Every donation will help towards achieves their goal. All contributions are tax deductible.

Agnico Eagle Mines is throwing not only support but hard cash behind the team. Agnico and friends will match every $2 that WIM raises with another $1, until the $250,000 goal is reached. This helps everyone’s donation go farther!

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UPDATE 2-Miner Glencore appoints first female board director – by Silvia Antonioli (Reuters India – June 26, 2014)

 http://in.reuters.com/

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) – Commodity trader and miner Glencore Plc, the last London-listed blue-chip company with an all-male board, has appointed Patrice Merrin as its first female board director.

The group had come under fire from some shareholders over its apparent failure to follow recommendations in a 2011 British government review that called for more women on company boards.

Canadian mining expert Merrin, appointed a non-executive director with immediate effect, had worked at Canadian miner Sherritt for a decade before becoming chief executive of Canada’s largest thermal coal producer Luscar.

She is also a director of precious metals mining company Stillwater and has been proposed as director of MFC Industrial and Cliff Natural Resources. “This is a historic day for the FTSE and for the reforms I’ve been pushing for to ensure that there is more diversity in the talent running our biggest companies,” said UK Business Secretary Vince Cable.

“This last appointment has been long in the making but I congratulate Glencore Xstrata … The case for change is clear – businesses with diversity at their top are more successful. British businesses have embraced this move for change and done so in a voluntary way, without recourse for legal targets.”

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NEWS RELEASE: Celebrating mining tradeswomen of the year

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

The Ontario Mining Association congratulates tradeswomen of the year Dani Drewek and Sarah Hunter. This duo was recognized recently as two of the dozen 2014 Influential Women of Northern Ontario Award winners. They are accomplished, talented females becoming leaders in their workplaces and positive role models. With all due respect to the abilities and accomplishments of all the winners, we would like to focus on two all-stars working in mining.

Ms Drewek, a 22-year-old Thunder Bay native, works as cage tender at Goldcorp’s Red Lake Mine, where she started in 2012. She is the first female to be doing this job. Ms Hunter is an electrician working underground for nickel-copper producer Vale in Sudbury, where she has worked since 2005.

The Influential Women of Northern Ontario Awards are run by Northern Ontario Business. The award categories include executive, entrepreneur, young entrepreneur and three new categories – Aboriginal leadership, tradeswomen and influential community trailblazer. There were 12 winners in 2014, six from Northeastern Ontario and six from Northwestern Ontario. Direct quotations in this e-news are attributed to Northern Ontario Business.

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Codelco Looks to 1st Female Director After CEO Fired – by Matt Craze and Javiera Quiroga (Bloomberg News – June 9, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The success of a $20 billion plan to revive Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, may rely increasingly on its first appointed woman director following the firing last week of Chief Executive Officer Thomas Keller.

Laura Albornoz was named in May by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to defuse a growing feud between executives and workers at the company created in 1971 through the nationalization of foreign-owned mines. She participated in a six-hour board meeting until 2 a.m. on June 6 that decided to fire Keller, a former Anglo American Plc executive.

Consensus-building between workers, executives and the state at Codelco, which has generated $110 billion in profit since its creation, is a top priority as the company looks to maintain its No. 1 ranking in the global copper market, while cutting costs, Albornoz said in an interview in Santiago June 3.

“Codelco has had management issues that isn’t just down to the international price of copper,” Albornoz said. “We can take the company a lot further than where we have got it to now.”

Albornoz will visit next week the century-old Chuquicamata mine in the Atacama Desert where relations between Keller and the workers were at their worst.

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Mine rescue captain breaking barriers – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – June 4, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – It wasn’t until the wives of a competing mine rescue team gathered around Lynne Bouchard to shake her hand that the significance of her achievement really sunk in.

Bouchard, who works for St. Andrew Goldfields in Black River-Matheson, is the first female captain to lead a mine rescue team to the provincials. The provincial competition, which kicks off Thursday, is being held this year at the Dome Mine in Timmins.

“It really sunk in when all the wives of the Kidd Creek team lined up to shake my hand and tell me how it was great and an inspiration to see a female step up to the plate like that,” the 26-year-old recalled from the district championships held in Timmins last month. “It was a very heart-felt moment.”

Bouchard will be leading St. Andrew Goldfields mine rescue team against Kidd Operations (Glencore) and the five other district teams competing in the provincials. St. Andrew is representing the Kirkland Lake district while the Kidd team is representing Timmins.

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Women in SA fare best at top level of mining companies – by Charlotte Mathews (Business Day Live – April 11, 2014)

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

WOMEN are better represented in executive management and board committees in the biggest South African mining companies than in any other country’s mining companies, according to a PwC survey released on Thursday.

Women made up 23.8%, or almost a quarter, of executive management among South African mining companies in the world’s top 100, compared with the next-highest country, Canada at 14.8%. South Africa had the highest proportion of women on board committees in the top 500 mining companies, at 21.3%, showing they are actively involved. The US was next highest at 8.7%.

It is a positive indicator for an industry that is still criticised by the government and unions for failing to make much progress in changing its apartheid legacy.

The Mining Charter, which mining companies must meet to acquire and retain mining licences, requires that 10% of employees be women this year.

PwC director for human resources services in Southern Africa Gerald Seegers said the enforcement of the charter was probably the main reason South Africa was ahead in this respect.

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Rio Tinto Puts Indian Women in the Driver’s Seat – by Joe Kirschke (Engineering and Mining Journal – March 19, 2014)

http://www.e-mj.com/

India is no easy place to be a woman. Despite comprising a workforce majority in the teeming nation of 1.2 billion with equal rights under a 1949 constitution, India’s women are almost universally exploited while often denied access to health, education and other basic needs. Worse, the world’s second most populous nation looms among the most dangerous places for gender-based violence.

Madhya Pradesh, one of India’s poorest regions and home to Rio Tinto’s Bunder Diamond Project, is emblematic: In 2011, the National Crime Bureau recorded 3,406 assaults against women—surely a conservative figure, and the highest rate nationwide. But while meeting local women pending development of India’s No. 1 diamond resource the year before, Rio officials noticed another grouping: dozens of raised hands at a community meeting—all hoping for driving skills.

The diversified Anglo-Australian giant is now beating the curve in empowering women in a deeply tribal, hardscrabble land booming India has long since forgotten. Through community development, moreover, Rio Tinto is bringing a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) win-win for women in a trajectory where half marry before 18, and 60% of whom give birth within a year amid one of the highest infant mortality rates worldwide.

The story surrounding Rio’s CSR footprint in the 15 villages of 15,000 inhabitants each surrounding its Bunder site dates to 2006, two years after the discovery of porous volcanic outcroppings revealed the deposit.

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Women in Mining chapter starts in Sudbury – by Jonathan Migneault (Northern Ontario Mining – March 6, 2014)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

The inaugural meeting of Women in Mining Northern Ontario, Jan. 30, in Sudbury marked a “pivotal moment” for the sector, said the event’s keynote speaker.

Samantha Espley, general manager of mines and mills technical services with Vale’s Ontario operations, said it is important to inform young girls and women about the career opportunities. Women represent only 16 per cent of Canada’s mining workforce – the lowest proportion for any sector in the country.

Most women who work in the mining industry do not have technical roles, but occupy traditional office jobs in administration and human resources departments. Women in Mining Northern Ontario hopes to eventually increase female representation in the industry to 50 per cent.

Espley, who earned her engineering degree from the University of Toronto in 1988, said the industry has progressed a lot for women since she first started her career.

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No Women on Glencore’s Board Marks Mining Imbalance: Commodities – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – February 20, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore International Plc’s $36 billion takeover of Xstrata Plc will unite about 130,000 employees that operate in more than 40 countries. The proposed board of directors doesn’t include a single woman.

Mining lags behind every other industry, including oil and gas, in terms of gender diversity, with women occupying just 5 percent of board positions, according to a January report by Women in Mining U.K. and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Of the seven companies in the U.K.’s benchmark FTSE 100 Index with all-male boards, five are miners. Four of the world’s five biggest mining companies trade in London.

“If I chaired an all-male board I’d set to work immediately getting some women on it,” said Mark Moody-Stuart, a former chairman of both Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Anglo American Plc, whose board appointed Cynthia Carroll as its first woman chief executive officer. “I don’t think they really have much of an excuse. It’s a matter of putting thought and effort into it.”

Mining has long been seen as a male bastion, with women banned from working underground in some countries until recently. That’s being challenged by a growing skills shortage amid unprecedented demand for natural resources.

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Women in Mining in Canada: Changing the Mining Industry – by Dick DeStefano (February 3, 2014)

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association  (SAMSSA). destefan@isys.ca 

One of most current issues in the mining community is the growing population of professional women who are actively participating in the mining work force globally.

I recently wrote an article entitled, “What Would We Do Without Women in Mining?” describing an organization recently reconstructed and reorganized into an association called Modern Mining & Technology Sudbury. This association introduces a week-long event outlining the importance of mining to over 1000 elementary and high school students.

It has become increasingly obvious as the association grows in size and structure that professional women in mining are not only leading the way in their daily mining responsibilities but specifically the 14 women on the 21 member committee are developing educational awareness on the importance of the industry through multiple interactive activities at this event. The association is hoping to target more young women considering a profession in a growing and important sector. These 14 women brought their daily experience to the Modern Mining & Technology Sudbury event.

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Mining while female: The perils of Marikana – by Ilham Rawoot (Al Jazeera.com – January 20, 2014)

http://www.aljazeera.com/

Women miners in South Africa say they are often subjected to sexual harassment – and worse – while on the job.

Johannesburg, South Africa – It has been almost two years since 27-year-old Pinky Mosiane was raped and murdered hundreds of metres underground in an Anglo Platinum mineshaft in Marikana, South Africa.

A suspect in the Mosiane case was finally arrested three months ago. This was not the first time a woman mineworker had been raped underground in South Africa. But it was the first time that substantial attention was given to these women and the sexual harassment they are subjected to on a daily basis.

In August 2012, a mining town named Marikana, along the “Platinum Belt” in South Africa’s North West province, made headlines around the globe. Thirty-four mineworkers employed by platinum miner Lonmin were killed when police opened fire during a strike over wages.

But the women of Lonmin have often remained unnoticed. “Anne”, a miner employed by Lonmin in Marikana who asked that her real name not be used, has been working underground for three years fixing ventilation pipes. With her gold-painted nails and not a stray hair amid her tight braids, it is hard to imagine her labouring in overalls, covered in black dust.

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Pioneering Manitoba woman to enter Mining Hall of Fame – by Chris Purdy (Canadian Press/Global – January 15, 2014)

http://globalnews.ca/toronto/

Kate Rice was so brilliant she could have done anything, and her family was so wealthy she could have done nothing at all.

The adventurous, tough-as-nails beauty from southern Ontario set out for the rugged Manitoba wilderness 100 years ago with a shotgun and snowshoes in search of treasure.

She never struck it rich, but she did discover the first nickel deposits in the province and made headlines across the continent as Canada’s first “girl” prospector.

“Living in the middle of nowhere, depending solely on yourself … I know how hard it is to work in a man’s world,” says Toronto businesswoman Linda Rice, 60, who recently found the mining legend’s name on a branch of her family tree.

She says she can’t even imagine what life would have been like for such a woman a century ago. “I was gobsmacked … I was very excited that I was related to such a pioneer.”

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OMA NEWS RELEASE: Let’s look at Canadian mining’s all-star female team

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

The achievements and leadership qualities of 15 women working in the Canadian mining sector have been acknowledged through the Women in Mining U.K. launch of the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining Project. Its goal is to recognize and promote the significant impact of females in the mineral industry.

“WIM (UK) has collaborated with WIM groups all over the world in order to reflect a broad cross-section of global industry talent in the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining Project,” said Amanda Van Dyke, Chair of WIM (UK). “From engineers and geologists, to finance professionals and investors, each woman has been selected because of the lasting impact she makes on those around her as a positive role model and her contribution to the industry.”

“WIM (UK) congratulates each of these women and is pleased to celebrate their efforts to make the mining industry a more inviting and viable option for working women of different backgrounds,” she added. “Each woman contributes to the mining industry in her own meaningful way as endorsed by their nomination.”

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