Workers at Chile's Escondida mine, the world's largest copper producer, said on Friday they were ready to follow the two-month wage strike that began Thursday.
During the second day of the strike, some 2,500 workers were organized in shifts to maintain the strike at the camp that they set up outside the complex at 3,100 meters altitude in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, Patricio Tapia, president Of the Escondida Miners' Union.
"On this second day we are in a very high mood. We are doing two shifts, so we say we will last two months," said the leader of the workers who gathered a fund of $ 389,000 to support themselves during the duration of the strike. In 2006, the workers were 25 days paralyzed.
The workers demand a salary readjustment of 7% and a bonus of about 39,000 dollars. They also accuse the company, which is controlled by Australia's BHP Billiton, of trying to reduce its salaries and implement discriminatory clauses in the contracts of new workers.
The company, which rejects these demands, paralyzed its operations for 15 days and formed an emergency commission to safeguard the facilities and external staff still operating at the mine, who are in charge of maintenance and cleaning.
"We are working with the company on zero, there is no conversation," said Tapia. "We are seeing that (external) contractors are not doing our work inside the mine."
A fire hit facilities within the mining complex Friday affecting some 1,500 workers and wounded four, a statement from Escondida said.
"The fire would have been generated by an external agent, so it is not ruled out that this fire has been provoked in an intentional way, and the corresponding legal actions are evaluated," the note added.
The incident occurred about seven kilometers from where workers are on strike, so they were not affected, said Carlos Allende, spokesman for the workers.
Escondida produces 679,000 tons of concentrate and 312,000 tons of copper cathodes, and accounts for 5% of global supply.
If the strike lasts for a month, it will cause a drop of at least 0.2% in the Chilean GDP, and would cause fluctuations in the price of copper in the international market, according to analysts.
Chile's copper production in 2016 reached 5,545 million tonnes, or 218,000 tonnes less than in 2015, a 3.5% reduction explained by the fall in the price of red metal, low quality of the ore and The 'maturity' of the deposits, according to a report from the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco). Chile is the world's largest copper producer with one-third of the total supply.
