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Union Officials Vow to Continue Contract Talks to Avoid Asarco Strike

Posted on: Friday, 1 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Jul. 1--Union officials pledged to negotiate through the night to avoid a strike by workers at Asarco mines and plants across Southern Arizona, but acknowledged the possibility of an imminent strike or lockout.

Union negotiator Terry Bonds reported "minuscule progress" at labor talks with Tucson-based Asarco LLC late Thursday as hundreds of workers prepared to walk out.

"I don't think there will be a lockout or a strike just yet, for now, but I can't tell you much beyond that," said Bonds, District 12 supervisor for the United Steelworkers of America.

Francisco "Pancho" Cruz, an operator at Asarco's Hayden mill, said late Thursday, "It looks like we'll be working past 12 and under the same contract. They escorted me out at 11 tonight, but they told me to report to work tomorrow."

The contract for about 750 workers at Asarco's Ray Group -- the Ray Mine and the Hayden Mill -- expired at 12:01 a.m. today. Another 750 workers at three Asarco operations in Arizona and one in Texas have worked without a contract for a year, but will walk off their jobs if their Ray counterparts do, Cruz said.

At the Ray Mine about 70 miles north of Tucson, the parking lot Thursday afternoon was filled with activity suggesting a work stoppage.

"The whole lot is full of trucks hauling humongous trailers because Asarco is telling all the mechanics to get their tools off the property," said 41-year-old Herman Zaragoza, a Catalina resident and heavy equipment operator at the mine.

But Cruz said those same mechanics were told to bring their tools back for their next shifts.

"It seems like they're playing mind games, or they don't really know how to react," he said.

Around midnight in Hayden, the union hall was full, police were everywhere, and seemingly every salaried Asarco employee was either "driving around in a truck" or standing near a gate, Cruz said.

If a strike happens, it's likely to be widespread.

"They had a meeting today, and it was decided that if the Ray Group strikes, every Asarco worker in Arizona is going with us," said Cruz, 43, who was working the swing shift until 11 p.m. Thursday.

Grupo Mexico purchased Asarco in 1999, and split off an Asarco subsidiary called Southern Peru Copper in 2003.

Bonds said the union and Asarco have met two or three times a day in Tucson for several weeks, and the union was prepared to negotiate through the night. But he said the company refuses to budge on demands to freeze wages and reduce medical and pension benefits.

"The only real concession I could actually say they've even made is some tiny little changes in the language of some things, but as far as revising their proposals, they haven't really bargained on anything," he said.

Negotiations have solely dealt with the contract for the Ray Group, but a potential strike would also lead to workers walking off their jobs at Asarco's Mission Mine near Sahuarita, the Silver Bell Mine near Marana, the Hayden Smelter and a refinery in Amarillo, Texas, Bonds said.

Asarco CEO Daniel Tellechea did not answer calls seeking comment after the midnight deadline. He has argued that wage freezes and benefit cuts are necessary to bring costs at the Arizona mines closer to those of global competitors.

A myriad of law enforcement agencies was gearing up in the Hayden-Kearny area about 60 miles north of Tucson. They include the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Pinal County and Gila County sheriff's offices, and the Kearny, Hayden and Superior police departments, said Sgt. Michael Fane, a spokesman for the Gila County Sheriff's Department in Globe.

The county line runs through "about the middle of the mine," with Hayden in Gila County and Kearny and Superior in Pinal County, Fane said. At least one agency was preparing to use Ray High School in Kearny as a command post and temporary dormitory, he said.

"We're not here for a show of force or to take sides. We're here to help keep the peace," he said. The Gila County Sheriff's Department is "just here because Hayden P.D. is a small department and we'll help them out if something happens." Zaragoza said an apparently strike-related "something" had already happened and is the subject of a federal investigation.

"On Tuesday or Wednesday, somebody took an ore truck at the mine and tied the steering wheel and put a stick on the gas pedal and it fell a good hundred feet off behind the tank house," he said. It caused no injuries, he said.

Cruz said he heard the same story, but could not confirm it.

"I'm also hearing that a couple of loaders got dirt put in their tanks, too, and stuff like that, but I'm still hoping a deal can get done," said Cruz, who began working at the Ray Complex less than a month after graduating from high school almost 27 years ago.

"We're not asking for much, and they're making a lot of money with the price of copper where it is, so why it is so hard for them to tell us they're not going to mess with our health care and our pension and just treat us the way we deserve to be treated?"

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Source: The Arizona Daily Star

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