Negotiations to update the labor agreement lasted until the early morning of Tuesday, but the company’s latest offers fell short of the miners’ expectations, and they decided to go on strike.

Escondida is considered the largest copper deposit in the world and the Australian corporation BHP controls the operations with 57.5 percent ownership. The other partners are the Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto, with 30 percent of shares, and the Japanese Jeco, owner of the remaining 12.5 percent.

In 2023 the transnational group produced 25 percent of the total copper in Chile and is only behind the national firm Codelco.

The offer made to the workers was a two percent salary increase and the payment of compensation bonuses, considered insufficient.

A communiqué from the union informed that after prolonged talks with the company, these did not present favorable advances to the workers’ demands.

To the strike at Escondida must be added another strike initiated the day before by the workers at the Caserones mine, operated by the Canadian Lundin Mining, also for wage improvements.

Chilean copper was nationalized on July 11, 1971 during the government of President Salvador Allende, however, after the coup d’état of September 1973, the measure was reversed and private capital was allowed to return to the exploitation of this resource.

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