Mining group BHP Billiton is to increase the proportion of aborigines in its workforce in Western Australia.
The Melbourne-based multinational has set a target to increase ‘indigenous employment’ in the Pilbara region from three per cent to 12 per cent by 2010, which would ‘reflect the proportion of indigenous people in the area’.
An apprenticeship and trainee scheme will target aborigines, and cross-cultural training programmes will tackle prejudice among staff.
The company hopes that new community projects it has paid for, such as schemes to protect aboriginal heritage sites, will also improve relations with indigenous Australians.
BHP Billiton, which employs 51,000 people worldwide, 18,000 of them in Australia, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government to strive to ‘focus on forging positive relationships with indigenous communities’.
It has also taken part in Oxfam’s ‘corporate community leadership programme’, which takes company executives into local communities to see social problems at first hand.