And now, for last year’s news on KGHM

Tuesday evening, a story began circulating around Kamloops that KGHM mine workers were rioting in Poland.

Yesterday, the email was stirring up some online conversations about the implications of a riot involving employees of the Polish mining giant that wants to build the Ajax project in Kamloops.

Here, in part, is the email sent out from the Stop Ajax Mine address to members of City council, MLAs Terry Lake and Kevin Krueger, MP Cathy McLeod and local media:

“Several hundred Polish miners have attacked the company headquarters of KGHM mining in Lubin. Europe’s number two copper miner is in talks with unions over pay, and company boss Herbert Wirth was in the building when it was attacked. Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the violence….’”

The post carries a hyperlink to a video of the riot, then offers some commentary:

“This is appalling. We do not advocate any kind of violence, but is this any indication of how KGHM treats their workers? Do we really want someone like this to run a mine in our town? And can we ‘trust’ that they’ll be a good corporate neighbour? Remember that the worst facts are never made public… what is worse than this?”

In response, a commenter on the Stop Ajax website said, “This is absolutely ridiculous! Why would anyone want to work for a company who’s own employees literally riot to get what they deserve? Why would we want them in our country, let alone our city?!”

“I hope someone from the Union that is supporting the Ajax bid has a response,” wrote another. “It sounds like they are threatening the Union workers, not a great way to collective bargain and a sign of what the future holds for the Ajax mine? Doesn’t sound like happy, well paid workers to me????”

Coun. Arjun Singh asked via email, “Just for clarification, did the company turn violent? I see that some workers, in this instance, did. I am not sure the company, any company rep, did.”

Good point but the event, as it turns out, happened a year ago. The KGHM miners clashed with a police line for awhile, appear to have briefly entered the building, broke some windows, and left.

Trouble in the Polish mining business isn’t confined, it seems, to worker-employer relations. A month before the KGHM confrontation, six coal mines owned by a different company suspended work for a day to protest the government’s plan to partially privatize the operation.

During the communist era, an article points out, miners were well paid and could retire early. “Now they fear their benefits are at risk as the country shuts down unproductive mines…”

The question is, though, why circulate a year-old news story about KGHM to local media and politicians? Ammunition for the anti-mine side, of course, but pretty low-calibre. Or, there’s this:

“I didn’t notice the date on it,” said Jarrod Goddard, who operates the Stop Ajax Mine website for the Kamloops Area Preservation Association, and who posted the story site after someone sent it to him. “That (circulation of a year-old story) would have just been a mistake,” he told me.

It might have been of more interest to point out last week’s story about KGHM’s big drop in first-quarter net profits. Not that that has anything much to do with Ajax, either, but at least it happened in 2012.