translated from Spanish: Chuquicamata strike threatens to spread: leaders call “aberrant” and a “joke” codelco’s latest offer

Today is a key day for the mobilization that from the vierne unions 1, 2 and 3 of the Chuquicamata Division develop, because workers will analyze in assembly whether they accept the last offer put the state copper service on the table.
However, the proposal that the company dubbed as the “maximum effort” they can make at the moment, has a reserved prognosis, because from already the union leaders asked their representatives to reject the proposal. “We knew Codelco could put an offer. But not of this irresponsible magnitude. I have to tell the workers that they can’t accept such an aberrant offer,” said The President of Union 3, Rolando Milla, in statements to Radio Bío Bío.
According to the leader, “the offer is worse than they put it before. The feedback our partners have made to us is that they will decline. By law we have to go to the ballot box, but this is a mockery.”
The state’s offer
While the state’s proposal keeps $14,100,000, as does the offer initially rejected by workers, this time it envisages improvements to the egress plan, which now includes two alternatives with special compensation, plus health benefits a two points that were sued by officials.
Thus, the contract proposed by the company includes a $14,100,000 aggregate, and a 1.2% to 36-month adjustment, which is broken down into a $9,000,000 BTN, a $1,100,000 strike agreement bonus, a $1,000,000 working day bonus, and a $1,000,000 loan soft $3,000,000.
The copper copper company emphasized that the offer “must be voted on in the ballot box, as established by the labor law for this process, unlike previous occasions when the union leadership determined to do so by freehand.”
The unions convened a general assembly on Wednesday at 18:00 as a matter of urgency to address the company’s offer at the Park Hotel in Calama. Tomorrow it should be voted on.
Real participation
Beyond the amounts, for striking workers the supply is insufficient, especially in the process of conversion to underground mine “We want a real stake in the transformation of Codelco”, said Rolando Milla.
Meanwhile, Cecilia González, president of the number 1 union of Chuquicamata insisted on Radio La Clave that “our theme is not the bonus, it is the future. We want to participate in the transformation of Chuquicamata. It is not easy to close an open pit that is 104 years old and take it to the underground mine. In the past we’ve got 1, 700 old people out there.”
According to Cecilia González, the goal is for these 1,700 people to come out well of the company and also with the corresponding health benefits. “All the people in the foundry come out with silicosis, hearing problems and cancer. The generation that is retreating is the one that entered the year 70 to 75 and the companies did not have the conditions that there are now,” the headsaid added.
González insisted that “workers have irreversible occupational diseases, so they must have a decent health system and Codelco has always done so, but this time Codelco does not want to take charge”.
 

Original source in Spanish