8 November, 2010Workers began a strike over pay at the world's third largest copper mine Collahuasi in Chile on November 5, after five days of government mediated talks failed.
CHILE: "The company continues with its intransigent position," the Union of Collahuasi Workers said in a statement released late on November 7. "The Collahuasi union strike continues."
Union members have occupied an abandoned school in the city of Iquique to use as their office until the dispute over pay and benefits is settled. "The installation of the workers at the historic Santa Maria's School, one hundred and three years after a group of workers at this mine first struggled against the intransigence of foreign companies, is a symbol of unity," said the union.
Industry experts said that output might be affected if the strike lasts for a week or more.
The union reports that the strike began as the buses that ferry workers from their camp near the mine to the deposit for their morning shift left empty.
The union also plans to march in Iquique, a booming mining city in northern Chile where the union is based and the mine operator's offices are located.
The union has asked Minister for Mining Laurence Golborne to comment on the impasse.
The mine operator said its last offer was fair to the workers, but the union says the mine has to start sharing a bigger slice of its record profits with employees.
Collahuasi, an open-pit mine, sits at an altitude of about 4,000 metres in the Andes of Chile, the world's No. 1 copper producing region. The mine produces 535,000 tonnes per year or 3.3 per cent of the world's mined copper and is owned by Xstrata and Anglo American. The union represents about 1,500 workers in this mine.