Union walks off job at BHP's Escondida, Spence copper mines in Chile
A union of remote workers for BHP's Escondida and Spence copper mines in Chile walked off the job early on Thursday after efforts to ink a labor contract deal with the company's management fell through, fueling uncertainty over the global supply of the red metal.
The strike at Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, and at the smaller Spence comes as copper prices have spiked amid soaring demand as the world's largest economies revive following more than a year of coronavirus-induced stagnation.
The 205-member union runs BHP's Integrated Operations Center, which remotely manages pits and cathode and concentrator plants from Santiago.
"We have started the legal strike, people are not working. Now we are organizing ourselves to see how we are going to face the coming days," the president of the union, Jessica Orellana, told Reuters.
She called the timetable for the walk-off "indefinite."
BHP Group said on Wednesday it would take contingency measures at its operations, and said the rest of its workers and contractors would continue with their everyday tasks.
But the strike - the first of its kind at Escondida by a group of remote operations workers - is also a test of the company's resiliency to labor action in an era when more and more work is automated or off-site.
"We are entering unknown territory," said Juan Carlos Guajardo, of Santiago-based consultancy Plusmining. "We'll have to see if this is a situation that allows for easy replacement [of workers] or if it is more difficult."
The walk-off comes as global copper prices hover near record highs and amid rising political risk in the region, with potentially big political shifts under way in both No. 1 copper producer Chile and neighboring Peru, the No. 2 producer.
The sprawling Escondida produced 1.19-million tonnes of copper in 2020, while Spence produced 146 700 t of Chile's total 5.7-million tonnes.
Article Enquiry
Email Article
Save Article
Feedback
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation















