Oscar Uscanga / Reform Agency
Thursday, May 04, 2023 | 22:06
Sonora.- For a week now, the open pit gold mine of the Penmont company, from Grupo Peñoles, has been paralyzed due to workers’ complaints of non-payment of utilities and a union dispute in Caborca, Sonora.
The dissatisfied, which are just over a thousand of the thousand 600 that make up the entire staff of the La Herradura mine, stopped activities for a couple of hours on April 28 to put pressure on the company’s executives.
A day later, it replied that it did not pay profits because it had negative financial results in 2022.
“Various factors impacted the productivity of the mine, after a significant increase in the price of inputs, spare parts worldwide, delivery times and drop in production levels occurred in 2022. Likewise, the deposit of the Noche Buena unit ended its useful life, significantly impacting the decrease in total production,” the company justified.
The workers are also dissatisfied with the support of the Front National Mining and Metallurgical Union, for which they have already signed their petition to change to the National Union of Metallurgical and Similar Mining Workers of the Mexican Republic, of the Morenista Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.
Leobardo Antonio Varela León, who works moving heavy machinery, criticized that the managers did not hold a negotiating table with them, in which the state Labor Secretary was going to be present.
He assured that the refusal to meet led to the fact that they did not accept the use of digital equipment to record the agreements in audio, video or photography.
“We want the mine to open a transparent communication channel for all of us who are in the movement. The result of the communication is expected to be the immediate resumption of work for all, regardless of their union preference,” he said.
He added that on April 28 the strike was carried out by decision of the workers, but the following days the mine was stopped because the company decided not to send transport to reach the facilities located an hour and a half from the municipal seat of Caborca, about a gap.
“Right now the people who have been signing, are already signing figures that I could confirm, there are over a thousand people who want to change their union, their signature is already there and all the corresponding paperwork is there,” he concluded.
According to company data, construction of the open pit mine began in 1997 and commercial production of gold and silver began the following year.
