Around 2,000 workers from ASARCO voted for strike action on Friday October 11th, potentially disrupting production at five sites in the USA across the states of Arizona and Texas. ASARCO is a subsidiary of the Mexican conglomerate Grupo Mexico, the third largest copper mining company in the world and the largest mining company in Mexico. Grupo Mexico produced just over 1Mt of copper in 2018 from its operations in Peru, Mexico and the USA.
The five sites affected by the industrial action are ASARCO’s Silver Bell, Ray and Mission open pit mines in Arizona, which between them produce around 350-400Mlbs (160-180kt) of copper concentrate, the Hayden copper smelter in Arizona, and a copper refinery and wire rod plant at Amarillo in Texas. The 2,000 employees are members of a total of eight trade unions, although the United Steel Workers (USW) Union which represents the majority of workers, has been leading the negotiations.
Union officials said 77% of its members voted to strike after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s “last and final offer” of a new four-year labour contract and had begun picketing the sites on Sunday 13th. Workers have been without a new contract since November 2018, when their previous 14-month one expired. Since then they have been working under the terms of a temporary extended contract. However, on Friday 11th October, they gave a two-day notice to ASARCO that they were terminating the temporary contract extension. The union labelled the new labour contract offer insulating, arguing that it would amount to a pay freeze for the majority of its members. The new labour contract also called for a freeze on all existing pension plans and an increase in out-of-pocket healthcare payments. In a separate long-running legal dispute, ASARCO has also so far refused to pay over US$10M in bonuses allegedly owed to workers hired after 2014, despite being ordered to do so by an arbitrator and in several court rulings.
ASARCO issued a statement indicating that it was disappointed with the decision to strike, which it said involved seven of its eight unions. The company said it continues to negotiate in good faith and remains “committed to reaching a new agreement”. The USW said it hopes to bring the strike to a quick end, but the main negotiation objectives of the two sides seem a long way apart.
Original Article: https://roskill.com/news/copper-grupo-mexicos-asarco-workers-vote-for-strike-action/
