Friday, July 8th, 2005...5:46 pm
Incipient Revolution
The Operating Engineers, United Steel Workers and Teamsters are simultaneously striking against ASARCO operations in Tucson, Sahuarita, Kearney and Amarillo, Texas. This is the first major Arizona copper strike in more than a decade.
Workers at Sahuarita have been working without a contract for a year. ASARCO, despite higher copper prices, are claiming that the workers have to take a cut in pay and benefits. The Steel Workers are saying that ASARCO has not negotiated in good faith.
ASARCO is now owned by a Mexican firm, Grupo México, and is looking to bring up scab workers from down there. Funny how those guys will be able to get papers quickly, eh?
Despite this, ASARCO is saying that production will be cut in half at the Silverbell mine. Well, yes, that is the idea.
Students of Arizona history will tell you that many of our copper strikes have ended badly for the unions. It sounds like this one is going well so far, all three unions are working closely together. If they can keep up the solidarność, this should go well. It’s a mine, they can’t pick up and move the copper to Gujarat.
The picture at left is one I got from a site that the Univeristy of Arizona Library has about the Bisbee Deportation. For those who don’t know, in 1917, the IWW held a massive strike in Bisbee and Butte, Montana. They had the aim of both improving conditions as well as ending US envolvement in World War I. The “wobblies” were rounded up and loaded into train cars and dropped off in New Mexico. The site has a short history of the events, plus a load of documents and effemera.
4 Comments
July 10th, 2005 at 2:22 am
19 bucks an hour. That is the average pay of a copper miner. I don’t make that and I have a college degree.
Bring in the mexicans! Teach those union bastards the beauty of living next to the border.
Send those union guys to one of the communist closed shop states.
July 12th, 2005 at 12:15 am
I make 11 bucks an hour sitting on my ass in an office with nice air conditioning and a comfy chair. They have to work in a dark mine with only human ingenuity keeping them alive. I think 19 bucks is a little cheap if you ask me. Especially when the managers and owners get around 40 an hour and they can sit in a nice clean air conditioned office with a comfy chair.
July 12th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
If uocef is that upset about a few hard-working miners making a few bucks more than he does, then I guess I am justified in assuming that he really has a problem with corporate CEO’s with their wildly inflated salaries, stock options, and golden parachutes.
I am sure uocef is agitating night and day to see these unjust inequalities rectified.
July 14th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
By the way people, the Young Demcorats of Arizona are going to be walking the picketline at the Silverbell mine (25000 W. Avra Valley Road, Marana, AZ) this weekend…four hour shifts starting at 6 AM. Please come and bring lots of ice and water.
Because we should not just say we support the miners who are striking, but also SHOW we support them.
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