Employee support activities

During 2010, to enhance the socio-economic conditions of employees, the Employee Support Advisor in collaboration with other stakeholders embarked on several activities such as the introduction of the Alcohol and Drug policy; an alcohol and drug campaign; pre-retirement training; one-on-one counselling sessions and family counselling sessions.

Employee relations

Rössing Uranium and the Rössing Branch of the Mineworkers' Union of Namibia (MUN) reached the following agreements for employees in the Bargaining Unit for 2010/2011:

• Basic salaries will be increased by 8 per cent from 1 January 2010.
• The minimum and maximum for salary scales were adjusted.
• The monthly housing allowance was increased.

Alcohol and drug policy

In line with Rio Tinto's overall strategy of zero tolerance towards alcohol and drug abuse, we introduced a stricter policy to guide management in terms of the handling of alcohol and drug cases in a consistent way following an increased trend in positive tests on the long-standing daily random selection procedure. The main focus of the policy remains reducing and ultimately eliminating the number of people developing addiction problems and posing a safety hazard to fellow workers.
Through applying consistent disciplinary consequences when a person is found to be positive for alcohol or other illegal substances when at work, and encouraging employees to seek assistance for addiction problems at the earliest opportunity, we hope to change this harmful behaviour and see a significant decline in persons testing positive for alcohol and/or other drugs. With this, we advocate for a sober and safe workforce.

In mid 2010, our Alcohol and Drug Awareness Campaign was successfully launched with the aim to inform employees of the requirements of the policy, including support offered for addiction; the signs and symptoms of abuse and changes required to live a life of sobriety. The campaign was rolled out to communities in Arandis, Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.