Just spotted this - Tesla amongst others implicated.
First of all, child exploitation like this is deplorable and needs to be stopped. Of course it’s not exactly the purchasers fault, but the supplier and the poor morals of those printing from the cold labour.
with regards to Tesla, I thought they explicitly stated they didn’t use cobalt from DRC??
Tech firms sued over DR Congo cobalt mining deaths
AFAIK, they don't.
More detail about the lawsuit, from the bottom up:
- They're representing families of children who claim they were injured or killed working at the Kamoto mine.
- Kamoto is owned and run by Katanga
- Katanga is a subsidiary 75% owned by Glencore, a UK company that is generally seen as the source of "legit, respectable" cobalt in the Congo. Glencore also owns the huge Mutanda mine that had to shut down this year due to the cobalt glut
- Glencore sells to Umicore, in Brussels, which makes cathode materials.
- Umicore has many partners. The lawsuit claims "Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, and Dell". It appears however that they just simply chose "big name" companies that use batteries that they felt they could link to Umicore. They also focus on cobalt, even though these mines are primarily copper mines, and cobalt is just a byproduct.
I've tried to find any evidence that Tesla has ever bought directly from Umicore. I cannot find any. Tesla's only direct connection to Umicore that I can find is that Umicore is a Tesla battery recycling partner. E.g. cobalt flows in just the opposite direction, from Tesla to Umicore. If anyone can find anything suggesting otherwise, let me know.
A huge customer of Umicore is LG Chem. E.g. who supplies EV battery packs for almost everyone
but Tesla. Tesla will, some number of months for now, be connected to Tesla via GF3 when the battery pack line there starts up. Tesla has also probably purchased LG Chem cells at various points in time for energy products.
Concerning the claims of their clients. Here's Kamoto:
Kamoto is not artisanal mining. Which, as a reminder, looks like this:
Kamoto is a professional mine using modern equipment. It seems extremely unlikely to me that they would in any way use child labour.
HOWEVER, there's been huge problems with illegal artisanal mining operations at Kamoto - people who sneak into their property and mine it without their consent. Last summer the military was sent in to try to shut them own after dozens of artisanal miners died illegally mining Kamoto's propery when they undermined a terrace, causing it to collapse:
At least 41 artisanal miners killed in Glencore’s Congo mine collapse
It seems
highly likely to me that these children
were being employed in such illegal mining operations on Kamoto's property. It seems highly
unlikely that Kamoto / Katanga / Glencore was involved themselves.
