[ad_1]
Santiago .- The workers of Escondida in Chile, the largest copper deposit in the world, agreed to reject the company's latest contract offer and go on strike, said the union in an internal document.
After holding extraordinary meetings in recent days, workers at the mining company – controlled by the Anglo-Australian BHP – concluded that the offer did not meet the requirements and ensured that it established "prejudicial" working conditions. "That is why, by acclamation and force in all the bademblies, members expressed their rejection of this offer and voted for the legal strike," according to the union's internal document.
Operators of the mine, located in North of the country, will begin the formal vote of the offer this Saturday and the votes will extend until the middle of next week.
Crucial negotiations take place a few ms after one year after the failure of a labor agreement that led to a 44-day historic strike, shook the global copper market, and left economic losses huge in Chile.
Escondida had improved its offer to the union this week, with an increase of a premium for the end of the dispute and other benefits for a total of $ 27,700 US, a salary adjustment, in order to reach an agreement.
The mining company offers a total of 18 million pesos (US $ 27,854) per worker, which includes compensation for termination of a housing benefit plan. This amount would in any case be less than the 23 million pesos (US $ 35,500) received by the unionized workers during the previous negotiation in 2013.
In addition to this amount, the company also offered a wage adjustment of 1, 5%, to which would be added the percentage change in inflation accumulated in the semester or annually.
In the union proposal to the company, presented in early June, a single bond equivalent to 4% earnings in 2017, nearly US $ 40,000 per worker. Workers also demanded a real wage increase of 5%.
The union's internal document pointed out that at the last meetings the plans of action studied and prepared for this phase of negotiations were explained to the workers
. the next steps, after the approval of the strike, will seek to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the company. The damaging conditions of the last offer must be eliminated and we must advance in our main points, "said the union in document
.
If the vote in favor of the strike is confirmed, the Chilean labor legislation provides that the parties have five additional days to negotiate under the mediation of a government agency
[ad_2]
Source link
