The strikers received a boost when thousands of miners in Mexico held a solidarity strike August 15.

As we go to press, officials from the striking unions are considering Asarco’s August 19 proposal to extend the previous contract by one year, maintaining current wages and benefits.

“We believe that this offer will end the strike and bring our employees back to work,” said Asarco president Daniel Tellechea.

A number of Steelworkers indicated opposition to the offer. “I’m not going to go back for the same thing after eight weeks on strike,” said Bill York, a general mechanic at the company for 20 years, according to the August 23 Amarillo Globe.

Robert Manriquez, president of United Steelworkers Local 5252 here, told Militant reporters at the picket line that fewer than 20 employees other than managers have crossed the line at the two facilities. Twenty-four-hour pickets are being maintained by USW Locals 5252, 915, and 886. Many drivers in passing cars honked in support of the strikers. Several other unions have also walked out.

Tucson-based Asarco is the U.S. copper mining unit of Grupo México, which owns mines and railroads in Mexico and had picked up the Southern Peru Copper Corporation in its 1999 purchase of Asarco.

The Asarco bosses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection August 10, two days before they resumed talks with the union bargaining committee.

“The strike isn’t responsible for Chapter 11,” said Local 915 president Tino Flores. “The company has been talking about bankruptcy since 1999, when Grupo Mexico bought Asarco in order to get their hands on Southern Peru Copper Corporation.”

On the Local 5252 picket line, Mike Dinwiddie explained that the company was trying to use the bankruptcy filing to escape its environmental cleanup obligations and financial responsibility for the asbestos lawsuits pending against Asarco.

About 400 people attended an August 17 public meeting in the Hayden High School auditorium organized by the USW for union members and the community. Steelworkers representative Terry Bonds said the union rejected a request from the company a day earlier for workers to return to their jobs without a contract, the Arizona Daily Star reported. ”They just wanted us back to work because they’re hurting, and that’s something we’re not going to do.

Pickets reported that a delegation of nearly 50 miners from the Cananea copper mines in northern Mexico—also owned by Grupo México—visited the picket lines and Local 915’s headquarters in early August to offer solidarity to the strikers.

Thousands of miners from Cananea and other Mexican mines launched one-hour staggered work stoppages August 15 in solidarity with the strikers at Asarco and in support of striking steelworkers in the Mexican city of Monterrey.

Local 915 is organizing a food bank and collecting contributions for the strikers at Asarco. Support messages and contributions can be sent to Copper Workers Emergency Fund, c/o USW Local 915, P.O. Box 550, Kearny, Arizona, 85237.  
 
 
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