21 November, 2011
The ICEM has extended support to Colombian mine union affiliate Sintracarbón and 1,200 miners who began strike action on 17 November against Swiss-based Glencore International. The strike at Colombia’s third largest coal mining company, Glencore subsidiary CI Prodeco, broke out at the firm’s Calenturitas mine in northern César department over management intransigence in coming to a collective agreement that would grant just pay awards, benefits, a promotion schedule and job security.
The La Jagua de Ibirico municipality branch of Sintracarbón gave a list of demands to Prodeco on 21 September and the two sides began the legally required bargaining on 3 October. But after the mandatory 20 days of talks ended on 22 October, management cut off dialogue and announced it would unilaterally implement a previous set of work rules as a collective agreement for a five-year period. (See ICEM report from last month.)
Sintracarbón then presented workers two options in a vote at the open pit mine: to strike or turn the dispute over to a government arbitration tribunal. Despite Prodeco’s harassment and intimidation at polling areas, including trying to block union leaders from conducting the vote, 97.4% of miners voted to strike, while 2% chose arbitration.
Last week’s walkout will cripple production by 30,000 tonnes per day. Prodeco was expected to mine five million tons of coal this year from the seven-year-old Calenturitas mine, and another 8.8 million tonnes from the La Jagua open pit mine, an operation that saw a 39-day strike from June to August 2010 by non-affiliated Sintramienergetica. That strike saw miners get a two-year labour agreement.
Glencore has posted excellent results from both thermal coal operations and is on line to increase combined production to 19.9 million tones annually by the end of 2013, and to 20.7 million by 2015. Calenturitas has total deposits of 122 million tones, while La Jagua has contains 133 million tonnes.