Workers Struggles: The Americas
Latin America
Chilean copper miners set to strike
Miners from BHP Escondida Copper overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract and have announced their intention to strike over wages and profit sharing. Escondida, in Chile’s Atacama Desert, is the largest privately-owned copper mine in the world.
In an attempt to prevent the strike by the 2,175 miners, management offered US $23,000 per worker, a combination of sign-in bonus and loans, far short of the workers’ demands of one percent of dividends. BHP management is demanding givebacks on job conditions and working hours under conditions of record copper prices across the world.