More than 300 Chilean workers jobless due to the closure of the San Jose mine—made famous by the recent rescue of 33 trapped miners—have threatened to occupy “Camp Hope” near the mine until they receive severance pay. The camp, which was used as temporary housing for the relatives of the 33 miners rescued last week from the San Jose mine, is now being dismantled, in part as an attempt to defuse tensions.
On October 18, a Catholic mass at the camp in honor of the rescued miners turned into a protest when sacked miners, who had been excluded from the religious ceremony, arrived carrying a sign that read “San Esteban: we are not 33, we are 300!” Another sign read, “We are trapped on the surface!” The San Jose miners have called on miners throughout Chile to support their demands with strike action.
The parent company of the San Jose mine, Grupo San Sebastián, has declared bankruptcy, leaving 300 miners on the street. It now claims it has no money to meet the workers’ right to severance pay. The company, a medium-sized concern by Chilean standards, has been around for about 50 years. In addition to copper mining it has sizeable interests in iron mining. The bankruptcy is likely a ploy by San Sebastián to avoid its liabilities and protect its shareholders, whose interests will undoubtedly be reorganized in some new concern.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/mine-o22.shtmlThe heart-warming rescue story is finished, back to your regularly-scheduled dog-eat-dog capitalism.
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