https://themilitant.com/2020/04/17/we-still-got-a-job-to-do-in-this-strike-asarco-miners-say/
‘We still got a job to do in this strike,’ Asarco miners say
article
BY BERNIE SENTER
Vol. 84/No. 16
April 27, 2020
“We’re still hanging in there — rolling with the punches,” Kevin
Chiquete, chairman of United Steelworkers Local 915’s hardship committee
and a diesel
electric mechanic at the Ray Mine in Kearny, Arizona, told the
Militant April 11. “We’ve still got a job to do in this strike and we
keep our spirits
up.”
For six months, 1,700 miners in Arizona and Amarillo, Texas, members of
the Steelworkers, Teamsters and five other unions, have been standing up
to copper
giant Asarco’s drive to bust their unions.
The bosses are determined to extend the decadelong wage freeze for most
workers, more than double health care premiums, and restrict the unions’
right
to protect workers on the job.
Across the country the bosses and their government are taking advantage
of the spread of coronavirus to atomize many workers, telling them they
have to
stay home. But copper mining is considered an “essential” industry.
“There’s a lot of people out of work in the area and the community has
rallied around us. People still come by the picket line or the union
hall and bring
out food or lunch for us,” Chiquete said. “We help pay the bills for
members on strike but we had to close down the food pantry for the time
being because
it was just too difficult to get grocery supplies.”
“We’ve limited the number of people on the picket line and at the union
hall at any one time” at the Ray Mine, Chiquete said. And at the Hayden
smelter
pickets are also still up, but with less workers on the line.
“We’re still on strike, staying faithful to the union,” Debora Hewitt
agreed in a phone interview April 11. Hewitt is a forklift operator at
Asarco’s refinery
in Amarillo, and a member of United Steelworkers Local 5613. “We have to
stay strong.”
Hewitt said that picketing there has been suspended for a while in
response to the Amarillo city government’s March 31 lockdown order, but
“the union’s
still getting out our food cards at the union hall or the picket shack.”
A similar decision to suspend picketing for now was made by the unions
at the Mission and Silver Bell mines near Tucson.
Asarco has maintained some production with workers who crossed the
picket line, replacement workers, nonunion contractors, and supervisors.
The company is owned by Grupo Mexico, one of the four largest copper
producers in the world. It boasts having the “lowest extraction costs in
the industry.”
Their union-busting drive in the U.S. is designed to keep that
competitive edge.
Send solidarity messages and donations to USW Local 915 Strike
Assistance, P.O. Box 550, Kearny, AZ 85137; USW Local 5252 Strike
Assistance, P.O. Box 896,
Kearny, AZ 85137; USW Local 5613, 4230 Texas Hwy 136, Amarillo, TX
79108; or via
paypal.me/palfcommunityservice
for Tucson-area strikers. Solidarity messages can be sent to
palfchair@xxxxxxxxx.
Contribute to the food pantries at: USW 915 and 886 hall, 107 Hammond
Dr., Kearny; IBEW Local 570 hall, 750 S. Tucson Blvd., Tucson; USW Local
5613, 4230
Texas Hwy 136, Amarillo, Texas.
Deborah Liatos contributed to this article.
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