Rio Tinto review shows rise in rape and bullying reports
Rio Tinto has said the number of its employees who reported they have experienced actual or attempted sexual assault or rape has increased over the last two years, despite efforts to improve its workplace culture in recent years.A report on the Anglo-Australian mining company, authored by the former Australian sex discrimination commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, found “mixed results” in its efforts to implement a programme to change its culture in an effort stamp out sexual assault, bullying and racism.Broderick’s 76-page report on the company, which employs 57,000 globally, noted that a rise in bullying against women was in part “retaliation” to Rio Tinto’s efforts to “promote gender diversity and inclusion”.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailThe report revealed that eight allegations of rape or attempted rape in the past 12 months, up from five cases in 2021.The report also found 32 employees reported experiencing pressure or requests for sex or sexual acts, down from 37 people in 2021.
Overall, 39% of survey respondents had experienced bullying in the last 12 months – up from 31% in 2021.“Generally, while reports of bullying increased across all genders, the largest increase between 2021 and 2024 was against women,” the report said.“This change can be explained by a range of factors including increasing retaliation in the form of gendered bullying as a response to Rio Tinto’s efforts to promote gender diversity and inclusion.”Kellie Parker, Rio Tinto’s chief executive for Australia, said: “It’s horrible that people are still experiencing this awful behaviour.”She said there had been a “significant increase” in terminations as more people reported some of these behaviours to the company.
“There’s definitely a spectrum of behaviour here,” she said,“You get low-level sexism and racism and people often once they’ve … been given feedback, they absolutely change,But some of the way more serious cases that we’ve seen, it’s been terminations, and that absolutely has happened across our business,”One in two women at the company were more likely to have experienced bullying in the last 12 months compared with 36% of men, the report said,Those figures were a deterioration from 2021, where 36% of women and 29% of men said they suffered bullying.
The report found some men inside the company, which operates in 35 countries, felt aggrieved by diversification programmes in the company.“From men, resistance was primarily located in the sense of being undervalued or overlooked due to the perceived stronger focus on gender balance and diversity, with some expressing their view that there was reverse discrimination and that women were being hired who were not suitably qualified,” the report said.“There was specific resistance towards programmes and strategies targeted at women and other marginalised groups, such as leadership programmes.”Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotionRio Tinto’s chief executive, Jakob Stausholm, apologised to victims and vowed to continue with Rio’s programmes.“People are still experiencing behaviours and attitudes in our company that are unacceptable and harmful.
I am greatly troubled by this and sincerely apologise on behalf of our leadership team to anyone affected,”Stausholm also pointed to points of progress outlined in the review, which showed some workers were noticing an improvement in the culture: two in three employees were quite confident Rio Tinto would make a “meaningful difference” in the next two years,“The review also shows that while progress is being made, achieving the sustained change we want to see in our culture will require ongoing focus and effort,My message today is that we will stay the course,” he said,Broderick – who was appointed by Rio in 2021 to conduct an independent review into its workplace culture – “applauded” some of the company’s efforts, which included investment in security upgrades at its camps, and setting quotas for increasing female participation in its workforce.
“Two years on, the progress is evident and there is an ongoing commitment to this work.I am not surprised to see some areas where results haven’t improved, this is a normal part of the cultural change process,” she said.“With sustained focus from Rio Tinto, we should expect to see the positive change spread over time.”Almost 12,000 people were interviewed for the new report, covering Rio Tinto’s operations in locations including Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and Mongolia.Bonuses at Rio Tinto, which is valued at nearly £84bn, have in part been linked to progress made in adopting recommendations made by Broderick.
TechScape: Betting markets come for everything – and the FBI comes for a betting market
Gambling on the outcome of the presidential election became legal in the US at the start of October after decades of prohibition, becoming a new type of pre-election poll. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket accepted billions of dollars in wagers on the outcome, with their users favoring Donald Trump with a 70% chance of beating Kamala Harris, out of sync with mainstream polls. Trump’s camp trumpeted the predictions.In the UK, election gambling is legal and takes a very different form. Traditional bookmakers and betting firms take players’ wagers and set prices and odds
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Roblox to give parents more control over children’s activity after warnings over grooming
The fast-growing children’s gaming platform Roblox is to hand parents greater oversight of their children’s activity and restrict the youngest users from the more violent, crude and scary content after warnings about child grooming, exploitation and sharing of indecent images.From Monday, Roblox will grant parents access to a dashboard on their own phone showing who their child is interacting with, how long they are spending on Roblox each day and to make sure they are accurately recording their age.It will also restrict users under nine to games rated “mild”, with access to “moderate” content allowed only with parental approval. Mild content might involve “unrealistic blood or unrealistic violence” whereas the blood would look realistic for moderate violence.Preteens will also be blocked from chat functions outside of games as part of a worldwide tightening of the rules on the most visited online destination among British eight- to 12-year-olds after Google, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok
AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience
Significant “social ruptures” between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said.The comments, from Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, come as governments prepare to gather this week in San Francisco to accelerate the creation of guardrails to tackle the most severe risks of AI.Last week, a transatlantic group of academics predicted that the dawn of consciousness in AI systems is likely by 2035 and one has now said this could result in “subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes” about whether computer programmes are owed similar welfare rights as humans or animals.Birch said he was “worried about major societal splits”, as people differ over whether AI systems are actually capable of feelings such as pain and joy.The debate about the consequence of sentience in AI has echoes of science fiction films, such as Steven Spielberg’s AI (2001) and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), in which humans grapple with the feeling of AIs
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