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+ {"source_url": "https://www.wsws.org", "url": "https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/30/asar-d30.html", "title": "Striking Arizona copper miners determined to continue fight", "top_image": "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485b/image.jpg", "meta_img": "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485b/image.jpg", "images": ["https://www.wsws.org/asset/1ab90938-c46e-474b-a32f-751d43ba550C/image.jpg?rendition=image480", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485b/image.jpg", "https://www.wsws.org/en/media/photos/legacy/sidebar/201802censorship198.png", "https://certify.alexametrics.com/atrk.gif?account=IRqgo1IWNa104B", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/98ef1723-4410-41f8-a3a0-49c022efbe4L/image.jpg?rendition=image480", "https://www.wsws.org/img/title.png", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485L/image.jpg?rendition=image480", "https://www.wsws.org/en/media/photos/legacy/sidebar/lectures1917-sidebar.jpg?v=2", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/031bcf5e-2257-471d-a1f2-9367a6531e5H/image.jpg?rendition=image480", "https://www.wsws.org/en/media/photos/legacy/frontpage/201801webinar-large340.jpg", "https://www.wsws.org/en/media/photos/legacy/sidebar/sepjoin198.png?v=2", "https://piwik.wsws.org/analytics/piwik/piwik.php?idsite=1&rec=1", "https://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/17a19401-652e-4373-8bd0-f9f15119da2N/image.jpg?rendition=image480", "https://www.wsws.org/asset/f3e18592-551c-4790-9c85-66bffc6c070C/image.jpg?rendition=image480"], "movies": [], "text": "\u201cThey treat us like cavemen. They don\u2019t care if we live or die.\u201d\n\nStriking Arizona copper miners determined to continue fight\n\nBy Evan Blake and Jerry White\n\n30 December 2019\n\nSunday marked the eleventh week of the strike by nearly 2,000 copper miners against Asarco LLC, owned by the Mexico City-based Grupo M\u00e9xico, the third largest copper producer in the world. The strike, which began October 13, has largely shut down production at three open pit mines and a smelter in Arizona, as well as a refinery in Amarillo, Texas. Asarco has brought in scabs to resume production at the three mines, while the smelter and refinery remain closed.\n\nStriking Asarco copper miners at the entrance to the Ray mine\n\nNegotiations over a new contract have been stalled since November 2018, when the previous 14-month contract expired. In early October, Asarco revealed its \u201clast and final offer,\u201d which amounted to an ultimatum that miners accept a future of poverty, poor health and unsafe working conditions. The company is demanding that workers extend their decade-long pay freeze for four more years and accept a more than doubling of their health care contributions and a freeze on their pension benefits.\n\nIn the face of this assault by the corporation, a coalition of nine unions, led by the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Teamsters, has limited the strike to allegations of \u201cunfair labor practices.\u201d Instead of striking over Asarco\u2019s demands for sweeping concessions, the unions are simply demanding that the company negotiate in good faith under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).\n\nThis strategy is aimed at hamstringing the striking miners and preventing them from broadening their struggle to the entire copper industry. The unions have imposed a gag order on the workers, demanding that they not discuss the economic issues that motivated the strike. The unions can call off the strike at any time by claiming that Asarco is negotiating fairly, sending the miners back to work with none of the economic issues resolved. Meanwhile, the company has the ability to fire the striking workers and replace them permanently.\n\nA World Socialist Web Site reporting team spoke with striking miners last week at the massive Ray 1 open pit mine outside Kearny, Arizona, discussing their working conditions and their thoughts on the struggle. The mine, which opened in 1880, extends for miles in each direction and contains one of the largest copper reserves in the US.\n\nTanis, a miner with 38 years at Asarco, said: \u201cWe are fighting for the next generation. They\u2019re trying to take away our wages, health benefits and pensions. Asarco started Grupo M\u00e9xico. After they came in and took over, they haven\u2019t given us raises. They don\u2019t help the communities, all the money is just for themselves. They want to freeze our pensions and not pay us anything more for additional time that we work. They want to keep us on a 10\u201312 hour workday, when we were on eight-hour shifts just a couple years ago.\u201d\n\nCody, a shovel and drill mechanic with 12 years\n\nCody, a shovel and drill mechanic with 12 years at Asarco, spoke on the reactionary demands the company is making. He said: \u201cThey\u2019re trying to give us a minimal raise and raise our insurance costs, which would technically be a pay cut for us. We\u2019re trying to get better wages and insurance, and we\u2019re also fighting for the people that are already retired, because they\u2019re trying to take away their pensions.\n\n\u201cThe company is trying to break us so they can do whatever they want. They\u2019re trying to make it so it\u2019s not livable. They\u2019re going backwards, no forward progress. We\u2019ve gotta stay strong with everybody else and show them that we mean business.\u201d\n\nCody also noted the extreme heat that the workers face when working in the summer. \u201cIn the summer time it gets real hot,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gets to 130 degrees down in the bottom of the pit.\u201d\n\nIn addition to the heat, workers face other serious workplace safety issues as well as environmental contamination in the nearby communities where they live. Lead and arsenic levels in the air above the region\u2019s copper mines have been found to be 60 to 80 times above \u201csafe\u201d levels, due to environmental damage caused by Asarco over decades.\n\nStriking Asarco copper miners at their picket\n\nDino, a miner with 18 years at the company, commented: \u201cA lot of guys I know who retired died right after with cancer. I was diagnosed with cancer, and no one from the company came to ask me how I was doing. Inside there, we face chemicals, dust and stress. I\u2019m trying to retire in a couple years so I don\u2019t die like the others that I know. They want to take away our pensions, but no one can survive on $1,000 a month.\u201d\n\nA veteran worker described the unsafe conditions: \u201cWe breathe in dust all day. There have been a handful of deaths at this location. When we sit in the seat of the hauling trucks, you can\u2019t see 36 feet in front of you. You can\u2019t see 92 feet to the right of you, 35 feet to the left. If someone is out there, out of your line of sight, you can crush them. On top of that, the contractors who drive out here don\u2019t go by the rules. They try to beat us across the intersection, and they could easily get flattened.\u201d\n\nAnother worker said, \u201cThey treat us like cavemen. They don\u2019t care if we live or die.\u201d\n\nSecurity patrolling the Ray mine\n\nThe ore-hauling trucks that miners operate weigh roughly 320 tons and have repeatedly been cited in the death of miners in horrific accidents caused by their blind spots. In 1998, the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) found that 120 miners were killed and 1,377 injured from 1987 to 1996 due to three main causes, one of which was \u201cblind areas on self-propelled mobile equipment.\u201d While the mining corporations spend upwards of $1 million on each haul truck, they have refused to spend a few thousands dollars to install basic camera equipment on the trucks to improve their safety, while MSHA has not mandated that they do so.\n\nComposed primarily of white and Latino workers, most of those at the Ray mine picket line voiced support for socialist policies and hostility toward Trump and the anti-immigrant sentiment he seeks to cultivate. Overall, the sentiment of the workers was internationalist, with many miners denouncing Grupo M\u00e9xico for allowing 65 miners to die, while recovering the bodies of only two, after the 2006 explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Mexico. A number of miners also spoke about the growing number of strikes, in particular those of nurses and teachers in recent years.\n\nAs opposed to this internationalism, the USW bureaucrats have promoted economic nationalism throughout the strike in an attempt to divide Asarco workers from their class brothers and sisters internationally. At a protest on December 16, Karla Schumann, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 104, made a statement declaring, \u201cGrupo M\u00e9xico is a rogue company that believes it can ignore US labor laws, violate international labor standards, recklessly exploit the environment and abuse US workers and their communities like they do in Mexico.\u201d\n\nStriking miners denounce a scab leaving the Ray mine\n\nIn reality, as with most transnational corporations, Grupo M\u00e9xico is largely controlled by Wall Street, including the investment firms Fidelity, Vanguard and Lazard.\n\nMany of the miners who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site were very critical of the unions, noting that they force the workers to go through the degrading process of applying for a hardship grant just to get food and gas cards. When our reporter explained that the USW has at least $150 million in its strike fund, one worker commented, \u201cThey could run their own bank!\u201d When the WSWS stressed that this is the workers\u2019 money, the same miner responded, \u201cYeah, just like these are our jobs,\u201d implying that the miners have no control over either aspect of their lives.\n\nIn discussing the role of the unions, the WSWS reporters elaborated a fighting strategy for the miners based on electing their own, independent rank-and-file strike committees, a perspective that aroused great interest. The miners are aware that they remain isolated due to the policies of the unions and are seeking to break through that isolation.\n\nMany workers thanked our reporters for covering their strike, noting that the local press in Phoenix\u2014the sixth largest city in the US\u2014hadn\u2019t written a single article on their months-long struggle. Many workers voiced contempt for both the Democratic and Republican parties, while some had illusions in Bernie Sanders or thought that Trump was an outsider who is \u201cdraining the swamp\u201d in Washington.\n\nA veteran miner stated emphatically, \u201cThe rich couldn\u2019t care less about us. The politicians are in their pockets, whether it\u2019s Trump or the Democrats.\u201d\n\nAnother miner said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether we\u2019re Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, socialists, it\u2019s been ingrained in all of us not to be scabs. We all grew up in the unions. We\u2019re fighting for each other. It doesn\u2019t matter what party you believe in around here, everybody works their ass off.\u201d\n\nThe north end of the massive Ray mine\n\nMany miners said they were second and third generation miners, and had worked for companies that were taken over by Phelps Dodge, Freeport or other mining companies.\n\nTanis said, \u201cI remember the \u201983 [Phelps Dodge] strike in Morenci. That was a nasty one. Families were divided between strikebreakers and scabs. To this day, they won\u2019t talk to each other.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of the assault Asarco is threatening against their pension benefits, a young worker with eight years at the company said, \u201cAs far as they\u2019re concerned, we\u2019re living too long. Workers are retiring and living to 92. If it was up to them, we would die a year or two after retiring.\u201d\n\nHe continued, \u201cEverywhere that I\u2019ve worked, they\u2019re cutting pensions, so all we can do is try to chase the dollar, getting the best wages we can. If you\u2019re on a 401k and making $15/hour, you can\u2019t survive, you can\u2019t afford health care, you can\u2019t afford to retire. So, we\u2019re just saying \u2018enough is enough.\u2019\n\n\u201cSince I\u2019ve been here, it\u2019s been non-stop fighting for a contract. They have a two-tier wage system in here. It\u2019s not 50 percent like in the auto industry, but you can have a worker making $21.50 working right next to a guy making $27.50 doing the same work.\u201d\n\nThe miners also described how Asarco has cut back funding for local community services in Kearny, including closing a pool and a library, and discussing disincorporating the town.\n\nSpeaking with residents in Kearny, WSWS reporters met an Arizona teacher whose husband used to work at Asarco. She said the teachers supported the Asarco strikers. \u201cMy husband couldn\u2019t stay there because they don\u2019t care, they don\u2019t pay enough to workers,\u201d she said. \u201cNow they want to take two times as much out of pocket for health care expenses. Grupo M\u00e9xico doesn\u2019t care about Kearny, they\u2019re cutting the services. When the teachers were on strike, the teachers themselves launched the strike, not the unions. The unions abandoned the workers.\u201d\n\nContribute to the fight for socialism in 2020 2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Asarco LLC", "Kearny", "Arizona", "Grupo M\u00e9xico", "United Steelworkers", "USW", "Teamsters", "United Auto Workers", "UAW", "Ray Mine", "Mine Safety Health Administration", "MSHA"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Evan Blake", "Jerry White"], "publish_date": "Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 2019", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "On strike for 11 weeks against Asarco LLC, the miners have shown great determination in the face of a virtual blackout by the mainstream media and pro-corporate unions.", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "/img/favicon.ico", "meta_data": {"robots": "max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:standard, max-video-preview:-1", "og": {"url": "https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/30/asar-d30.html", "type": "article", "title": "Striking Arizona copper miners determined to continue fight", "description": "On strike for 11 weeks against Asarco LLC, the miners have shown great determination in the face of a virtual blackout by the mainstream media and pro-corporate unions.", "image": "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485b/image.jpg"}, "twitter": {"card": "summary_large_image", "title": "Striking Arizona copper miners determined to continue fight", "description": "On strike for 11 weeks against Asarco LLC, the miners have shown great determination in the face of a virtual blackout by the mainstream media and pro-corporate unions.", "image": "https://www.wsws.org/asset/ea392243-0a11-4428-bcd9-d2025236485b/image.jpg?rendition=image1280"}, "viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1", "id": "b5c479c9-9f23-4b43-ade6-0ee870948d0P", "language": "en", "date": "2019-12-30", "keywords": "Asarco LLC, Kearny, Arizona, Grupo M\u00e9xico, United Steelworkers, USW, Teamsters, United Auto Workers, UAW, Ray Mine, Mine Safety Health Administration, MSHA", "ranking": 90, "overline": "\u201cThey treat us like cavemen. They don\u2019t care if we live or die.\u201d", "headline": "Striking Arizona copper miners determined to continue fight", "description": "On strike for 11 weeks against Asarco LLC, the miners have shown great determination in the face of a virtual blackout by the mainstream media and pro-corporate unions.", "author": "Jerry White", "category": "namerica"}, "canonical_link": "https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/30/asar-d30.html"}