THE copper-mining strike by 1,551 members of Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi in Chile enters its second week today, with miners emboldened by both fervent loyalty among union ranks and knowledge that company rhetoric concerning ongoing production is a deception for the benefit of world copper markets.
The company is Doña Ines de Collahuasi, the world’s fourth largest copper producer, owned by global mining giants Xstrata and AngloAmerican, with a smaller share held by Japanese industrial conglomerate Mitsui & Co.
Since the strike began on November 5th, the Collahuasi Workers’ Union has been united in a stand that most assuredly will bring them a fair share of the mine’s profits and more importantly, improved social provisions for their families.
The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions (ICEM) has pledged global support to the union and commends Chilean mining unions for doing the same inside the South American nation.
The union asked management to resume negotiations last week but the company refused, saying it would not re-enter talks without assistance from government mediators.
Even though Doña Ines de Collahuasi managers say publicly the open-cast Rosario mine is operating normally under a strike contingency plan, union spokesman Luis Espinoza Garrido told the ICEM the fallacious contingency plan consists of 300 scab workers from outsource companies providing output of no more than 18 per cent of total production.
‘Three hundred inexperienced workers cannot do the work of 1,550 miners’ said Espinoza. ‘This is unsustainable and the company will come to realise this.’
Espinoza said the strike is about far more than just pay and bonuses. He said key issues include health benefits, education for miners’ children, and work schedules. Considering Collahuasi’s vast profits – net earnings last year totalled US$ 1.56 billion – the union wants company-paid health costs raised from the current 80 per cent to 100 per cent and education costs hiked from 50 per cent to 100 per cent.
A major concern is the health of miners. The Collahuasi mine, located in the Atacama desert in Chile’s remote Region I, finds miners working at an altitude of 4,000 metres where oxygen levels are low and stress levels on the body are high.
A US$750 million mine expansion is also under way that will lift production from 550,000 tonnes per year to a million tonnes annually, with altitudes expected to reach 5,000 metres in new mining areas.
Another concern is silicosis. Because of massive dust clouds at the mine containing crystalline silica particles, miners are endangered by the deadly lung disease.
Miners work seven days on, seven days off, and a further point of contention is management’s proposed changes to exceptional days off.
Since day one of the strike, most of the 1,551 strikers have taken up residency in the shuttered Santa María School in the Pacific port city of Iquique, 285 kilometres from the mine. In Iquique, both Doña Ines de Collahuasi managers and local governmental authorities siding with management accuse squatting miners of displacing the activities of youngsters.
In fact, the opposite is true. Strikers are encouraging children’s activities and on Sunday, November 14, the union held a community cultural event in the closed school.
The Collahuasi Workers’ Union has taken their protests to the streets of Iquique each and every day.
On October 11, 800 strikers occupied the offices of the company in Iquique, headquarters for the company, and have protested at a company molybdenum plant just south of there in the port town of Patache.
On October 10, mine union leaders from BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto’s Escondida copper mine, BHP’s Spence and Cerro Colorado mines, Canadian Aur Resources Quebrado Blanca mine, Xstrata’s Lomas Bayas mine, Canadian Castle Rock Resources Sierra Miranda mine, and Chile’s Minera Cerro Dominador visited the striking Collahuasi miners at the Santa María School.
l Two Dead in Dynamite Blast Near Chile’s San José Mine Rescue Site
Re-emphasising the immediate need for Chile to take complete regulatory overhaul of mine safety, two workers were killed and a third seriously injured on November 8th when dynamite was mishandled inside the Los Reyes copper mine.
The incident happened 60 kilometres northeast of Copiapó in the country’s northern Region II, a short distance from the San José mine, site of the dramatic rescue last month of 33 miners after 69 days underground.
Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service said the underground Los Reyes mine was new, unregistered, and operating illegally.
The two dead miners, one age 40, the other 26, were working their first full day inside the mine. The injured worker, a 21-year-old, suffered a head injury that likely will result in the loss of his left eye.
Reportedly, old detonators reacted to heat and humidity and exploded prematurely.
The mine is owned by Sociedad Legal Compañia Minera Del Sur, a mining company that not much is known about except that it extracts copper from small deposits. A principal of the company, Mexican national German Statures Bazan, immediately fled Chile after the accident on a flight from Santiago to Argentina. Chilean authorities were seeking his capture.
l Leading negotiations from exile in Canada, General Secretary of ICEM-affiliate Los Mineros of Mexico, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia achieved wage gains for four branches of the union. Direct salaries were increased by 8 per cent in each, apart from Section 269 in Guerrero, Mexico, where Los Mineros members saw their overall income increase 10 per cent.
The negotiations were conducted in direct dialogue with company management, with no involvement by the Federal Ministry of Labour, a further indication that the Ministry is not regarded as able to fulfil its role as a fair adjudicator.
The 10 per cent gains for Section 269 were achieved through bargaining with Canadian-owned Gold Corp, a producer of gold and silver. Direct salaries were increased 8 per cent and additional social benefits were improved by 2 per cent, including scholarships for workers’ children, among other advantages.
The 8 per cent salary increases were achieved for members of Fraction 1 of Section 269 with employer Mineral Raw Materials in Puebla; members of Section 247, Western Jalisco, at Minera El Pilon; members of Section 16 in Coahuila, employed by coal producer Industrial Materials; and members of Section 274 at the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas at the Sadcom de Occidente company.
The ICEM salutes these significant advances by Los Mineros for its members, in the face of continuing persecution by the government of Felipe Calderón.
Elsewhere in Mexico, last week the ICEM-affiliated United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) launched a legal campaign, calling on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHCHR) to investigate the continuing violation of Mexican workers’ rights to free association.
The UE, together with the National Lawyers Guild and Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, are soliciting letters of support from labour, legal organisations, and law firms.
The letters will be filed to coincide with the 100th Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, on Saturday, November 20.
