"In a year of anti-Muslim vitriol, major brand advertisers promote inclusion"/ "Mining association launches regulations to diversify mostly 'male and white' industry"

Jan. 6, 2017 "In a year of anti-Muslim vitriol, major brand advertisers promote inclusion": Today I found this article by Sapna Maheshwari in the Globe and Mail:

The gentle piano music starts as the doorbell chimes. A white-haired Christian pastor greets his friend, a Muslim imam, and the two converse and laugh over a cup of tea, wincing about their creaky knees as they prepare to part ways. Later, it spurs the same idea in each for a gift: kneepads sent via Amazon Prime. (It is a commercial, after all.)

The piano notes accelerate as the men open their deliveries with smiles, and then each uses the item to kneel in prayer: one at a church, the other at a mosque. The final chords fade.

The ad from Amazon and its message of interfaith harmony became a viral sensation this holiday season, at the end of a year in which talk involving Muslims became particularly ominous. 

Amazon – which aired the commercial in Britain, Germany and the United States – cast a practising vicar and Muslim community leader in the lead roles and consulted with several religious organizations to ensure the ad was accurate and respectful.

“This type of a project is definitely a first for us,” said Rameez Abid, communications director for the social justice branch of the Islamic Circle of North America, one group Amazon worked with.

 “They were very aware that this was going to cause controversy and might get hate mail and things like that, but they said it’s something that they wanted to do because the message is important.”

A slew of major U.S. brands – including Honey Maid, Microsoft, Chevrolet, YouTube and CoverGirl – prominently featured everyday Muslim men, women and children in their marketing last year. 

While such ads were apolitical in nature, focused on themes of community and acceptance, they were viewed as bold, even risky, in a year when there were campaign statements by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump about a Muslim registry and a ban on Muslim immigrants.

Several advertising executives likened the movement to the decision by mass marketers to cast same-sex couples and their children in ads for the first time in 2013 and 2014, making inclusion and acceptance a priority over potential criticism from some customers.

“With the kind of gay parent issue, we’ve gotten a little closer to acceptance, but the Muslim issue in America is still pretty raw for a lot of people,” said Kevin Brady, an executive creative director at the ad agency Droga5, which worked last year with Honey Maid on a commercial about white and Muslim-American neighbours. 

“I don’t think it should be, but it’s one that I think brands took an extra step of courage to really go out there with in 2016.”

A campaign for YouTube Music in the middle of last year highlighted five individuals, including a young woman in a hijab, rapping to a song by Blackalicious while walking through a school corridor. 

The inclusion of the ad, Afsa’s Theme, was purposeful, said Danielle Tiedt, chief marketing officer at YouTube, adding that highlighting diversity is “more important than ever.”

“I don’t think diversity is a political statement,” she said. “This is an issue of universal humanity.”

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Jun. 22, 2023 "Mining association launches regulations to diversify mostly 'male and white' industry": Today I found this article by Naimul Karim on the Financial Post:

Canada’s largest mining association has announced new regulations that its members must follow to tackle issues such as sexual harassment, bullying and gender discrimination at a time when the industry is finding it difficult to attract workers.

Through its equity, diversity and inclusion protocol, the Mining Association of Canada, whose nearly 60 members including Barrick Gold Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd., hopes to attract more women, newcomers and minorities in a sector that’s “male dominated” and “homogeneously white,” the association said.

In February last year, Rio Tinto Ltd., one of the world’s largest mining companies, released a report based on a survey of about 10,000 employees, which suggested the presence of systemic bullying, sexual harassment and racism in its workforce.

The report helped pushed MAC to introduce its new protocol, the association’s chief executive Pierre Gratton said. The new regulation will compel its members to 

conduct similar independent surveys, 

be transparent 

and take steps to improve the working environment. 

If members don’t adhere to the regulation, they can be asked to exit the group as a last measure.

“There are still operations around the world where there aren’t any women’s toilets. 

Even things within Canada, mining equipment is not necessarily designed for female’s bodies,” Gratton said. 

“Companies need policies on anti-harassment and bullying against women, against minorities. Some of them have them, but to what extent are they fully implemented?”

Canada’s mining industry expects to have a shortage of about 80,000 to 120,000 workers by 2030, according to the non-profit Mining Industry Human Resources Council.

MAC’s workplace push is part of its Towards Sustainable Mining program, which helps miners manage environmental and social risks. The program already has about 30 indicators and eight protocols that deal with issues such as tailings management and communicating with Indigenous groups. Members are graded annually and handed scores from AAA to C.

Gratton said most companies in the early days of that program struggled to meet MAC’s regulations. But in the past 15 years, a majority of the companies improved and were given an A grade. 

This compelled MAC to redesign their criteria and make its indicators stricter. Gratton expects to see similar progress with the new protocol.

“In order to go up the curve and achieve the kind of results that they are going to be proud of, as opposed to embarrassed by, which I think it’s going to be a little bit like in the beginning, they are going to have to look at their HR policies, they are going to have to look to see if there’s unconscious bias or outright bias,” he said.

Critics such as the Mining Watch Canada, a non-governmental organization, believe that MAC sets weaker standards than some other associations.

But Anne Johnson, an assistant professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., in August said MAC’s policies are “valuable” because they set “minimums” and require companies to improve over time.

“Incremental improvement is going to get us where we need to go,” she said.

Others agree. Marci Ien, the minister for women, gender equality and youth, said MAC’s new policies could play a key role in making communities feel safe in an industry that’s “predominantly male and white.”

Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, said she was confident the new policies would make mining companies more accountable and transparent.

https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/mac-urges-miners-diversify-mostly-male-white-industry