Wage row hits world's largest copper mine

SANTIAGO: Workers struck the world’s largest copper mine, jeopardising 8% of the global production and spurring prices to a three-week high. “This is the first real strike in the company’s history. We do not know how it will turn out, but we are ready to hang in there,” said Pedro Marin, a trade union spokesman at the Escondida mine that belongs to the Anglo-Australian giant BHP Billiton.

Escondida miners did not show up for the morning shift. Workers overnight turned off the engines of mineral processing equipment. Escondida is located some 1,300 km north of the Chilean capital Santiago in the Atacama desert. It saw a stoppage in ’03, which lasted only a few hours.

More than 2,000 workers at the mine are demanding a 13% pay raise and a $30,000, which they say reflects a tripling in global copper prices since the previous collective bargaining agreement reached three years ago. The workers turned down a last-minute company offer on Friday of a 3% pay raise and a $16,000 bonus per miner.

Escondida produces on average 125,000 tonnes of copper per year, nearly 20% of total production in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer. Copper accounts for nearly 2.5% of Chile’s gross national product. Main customers are Japan, Germany, Canada, China, Sweden, Brazil, South Korea and France.

The strike had been brewing for weeks, and the news did not take global markets by surprise. In London, trading the price of copper rose to more than $8,000 per tonne for the first time in three weeks. Both sides kept to their stands on Monday. Copper miners are some of the highest wage earners in Chile, reflecting the industry’s importance to the economy.