LatinNews Daily - 16 August 2024

*A strike at the Escondida mine, the world’s largest copper mine located in the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile, has entered its third day as the Sindicato Escondida 1 (SE1) union and Australian mining company BHP, which owns the mine, fail to reach an agreement. The union began the strike on 13 August after contract negotiations regarding wage increases and profit shares collapsed. According to the local and international press, BHP offered union members a signing bonus of Cl$27m (US$28,900) each, along with improvements in benefits, but the union demanded Cl$30m per head and a share of the profit. SE1 has since accused the company of “anti-union” practices by replacing workers and imposing “impossible” conditions on the restart of talks, in a statement widely cited in the press. A strike at the mine over wage increases in 2017 lasted for over 40 days and led to significant losses for BHP and a major impact on copper production.