Chile: miners of one of the world's largest copper mines are on strike
A copper mine operated by the state-owned Codelco in Chile's Atacama Desert (illustrative image).
AP - Jorge Saenz
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Three unions of the Chilean public company Codelco, have started a strike after the rejection of the proposals of the management of the Andina copper mine, one of the largest in the world.
Chile is the world's largest producer of copper, with 28% of world production and represents 10 to 15% of its GDP
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The dispute concerns the salaries of miners at the Andina mine, located over 3,000 meters above sea level in central Chile.
According to a union representative, the leaders of the group want "to
reduce labor costs by removing health rights and severance pay
".
Unacceptable for the unions who recall that during the pandemic, the miners made superhuman efforts going to overwork.
Codelco management attempted mediation in order to reach an agreement, but the negotiations were unsuccessful, the three unions representing 1,300 of the 1,437 miners in Andina decided to go on strike.
For its part, the management let it be known that "
as part of its transformation process, it will not be able to go beyond its proposal
".
Last week, after 25 days of strike action, the main union at another site of the group, the Escondida mine, which has 2,000 workers, accepted
an agreement with the leaders of the Anglo-Australian group BHP
which provides for an increase of 5 % of wages and an end-of-strike bonus of $ 16,600.
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