29 November, 2010
The President of the Union of Workers’ of the Collahuasi Copper Mine, Manuel Muñoz, told the ICEM on Friday, 26 November, that the 24-day copper strike in Chile’s northern Region I now enters a pivotal period. There is strong likelihood that mass violence could break out because of threatening, strong-arm tactics of company-controlled local police in Iquique, as well as by federal police.
The company is Doña Ines de Collahuasi, a leading global copper producer owned by Xstrata, AngloAmerican, with a smaller share held by Japan’s Mitsui & Co. The lurking possibility of violence surrounds the union’s daily peaceful manifestations in the city of Iquique, 185 kilometres from the open cast copper mines of Collahuasi.
What is exasperating Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi are company efforts to break the strike by offering individual miners a bonus and pay increase – above what it is offering the union – to quit the strike and return to work. Labour law in Chile allows workers to abandon a work stoppage and return to work after 15 days on strike without the union imposing repercussions. If over 50% of a workforce does that, the strike can be legally terminated.
Muñoz told the ICEM that as of early Friday, 100 of the 1,551 miners had accepted the offer and abandoned the strike, even though a local court ruling last week deemed that illegal. Collahuasi has inflamed tensions by making direct appeals to family members and coercing them to convince husbands and fathers to quit the strike.
Collahuasi is nowhere near the 50% mark, and the company’s strike-breaking tactic is reflected in the fact that it has extended the deadline for individual workers to accept the enhanced pay package. The copper mining concern said ten days ago that the deadline for strikers to accept a bonus of 14 million pesos (US$28,733) and a 42-month pay increase of 16.3% was midnight on 23 November.
But even after stating early on 23 November that the deadline would not be extended, Collahuasi did just that later in the day, extending it until midnight 26 November.
Muñoz is less concerned about Collahuasi breaking the strike than he is about police and renegade thugs that side with the company precipitating violence.
“We are in a state of worry because our strategy of peaceful protests might be met with violent conflict,” he said. “There is frustration by our members because of company tactics including coercion on families and this has not helped.”
The union has attempted to re-start negotiations, both with a direct appeal to Chile’s Labour Minister and an offer by Roman Catholic Bishop Marco Antonio Órdenes to mediate the pitched copper dispute. Collahuasi has rejected the offer by the Catholic bishop, while the Labour Ministry told the union that its efforts ended in the run-up to the strike when it fulfilled its lawful duties by offering mediation services once the parties hit impasse.
There was a small ray of light on 25 November when an Iquique Labour Court Judge, Marcela Diaz Méndez, issued an order stating that under Section 492 of the Labour Code, the company has a legal obligation to declare collective negotiations with the union not complete. The order thus negates direct appeals to workers to abandon the strike. It is expected that Collahuasi will appeal the judge’s order.
For the Union of Workers’ of Collahuasi, the strike is about far more than gaining adequate pay and bonus claims against a mining enterprise that saw net earnings last year of US$1.56 billion. The union is also seeking an increase in company-paid health coverage from 80% to 100%, and education benefits for children of miners hiked from 50% to 100%.
The health issue is a major concern. Collahuasi is located in the Atacama Desert, some 4,000 metres high in the Andes where oxygen levels are low and stress on the body is high. As well, a US$750 million mine expansion is underway that will lift production from the current 550,000 tonnes per year to one million tonnes, with new mining areas to be located in altitudes of 5,000 metres.
In these open-cast copper mines, workers are exposed to dust clouds containing crystalline silica particles from crushed rock. Such conditions are prone to miners contracting silicosis, a deadly lung disease.