Workers at Chilean copper giant Codelco have threatened to down tools in protest over what they charge are lax efforts by management to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a union official said.
"If we need to halt and quarantine those areas until the necessary health conditions exist to protect miners' lives, we will do it," said union boss Juan Elgueta in a statement on June 10.
Codelco declined to comment on the union's charges.
The state-owned mining company is one of the world's largest producers of the red metal, producing 1.588 million mt last year.
Elgueta, who leads the Copper Workers' Federation, Codelco's largest union organization, said the rate of infection was "out of control" at the company's operations, blaming management of failing to take sufficient steps to enforce sanitary rules and provide safety equipment such as alcohol gel.
While Argentina, Bolivia and Peru halted their mining industries in March as part of nationwide lockdowns, the Chilean government has taken a more liberal approach, authorizing its mining industry, the backbone of its economy, to keep operating while encouraging companies to adopt strict health protocols.
As a result, while Peru posted a 34.7% drop in copper production in April, output in Chile rose by 2.8% to 474,880 mt in the same month.
However, the death last week of Santiago Ochoa, the first Codelco employee to die from the disease, has heightened concerns among miners that they are exposing themselves while much of the population is being ordered to stay at home.
But stricter health measures could further slow Chile's giant copper mines, which produced almost one-third of the world's copper last year. The Chilean Copper Commission recently predicted that production will fall by 200,000 mt this year from 5.8 million mt in 2019.
"Mine workers are on the frontline, contributing often anonymously, to the country's growth, but this cannot be any cost," said Elgueta.
