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21 August, 2006
Riot police in southern Peru battled striking contract workers at Chinese state company Shougang Hierro Perú SA recently, leaving seven seriously injured, including the wives of three workers. Some 600 contract workers employed by three cooperatives began a strike at Peru’s only iron ore operation late in the evening on 7 August.
The strike ended on 16 August, but not before police used excessive force to seriously injure the seven, including one person who nearly died. Twenty-eight other workers were detained during the police violence, which occurred on 9 and 10 August as strikers blocked roads leading to the mine in Marcona, department of Ica.
César García Hernández, a contract worker,
injured by police
One of Peru’s national labour centres, the Confederación General de Trabajores del Perú (CGTP), which helped resolve the eight-day strike, decried the violence, calling it an “inexplicable act by police to protect the interests of a foreign company.” Reportedly, police used heavy sticks, their boots and threw tear gas canisters at the strikers in order to disperse them. Eyewitness accounts said police were particularly abusive to women by kicking them as they cooked for the strikers.
The strike had the effect of shutting the mine since some 900 permanent workers, trade unionists of ICEM affiliate Federación Nacional de Trabajores Mineros, Metalúrgicos Y Siderúrgicos del Perú (FNTMMSP), honoured strike lines. In June, following a week-long strike, the union won wage and bonus increases for the permanent workforce.
In a statement, FNTMMSP condemned the social conditions that contract workers of the three cooperatives work under, including failure by the companies to recognise workers’ collective bargaining rights. FNTMMSP called the establishment of the cooperatives a scam “to evade all kinds of legal responsibilities and obligations.” The union said the contracting companies fail to provide a decent and just salary, violate standard work rule requirements, and do not provide extra wages for night work or allow contract workers to take holidays.
The three cooperatives are Sercolima Sac, La Cooperativa del Solar Ltda., or Coopsol, and Cooperativa Santo Domingo de Intermediación Laboral de Shougang.
The strike ended after negotiations occurred between the primary employer, the subcontractors, the CGTP, and the government. Contract workers did not achieve all salary objectives, but did gain a US$1-per-day salary increase. The parties also reconciled some of the outstanding grievances, including the immediate reinstatement of three workers who had been discharged.