Neves-Corvo. Strike with less than 1% participation

The four-day strike at the Neves-Corvo mine, in the district of Beja, due to the implementation of a new shift rotation model, ended on Saturday with a turnout of “less than 1%”, the concessionaire company confirmed this Tuesday.

An official source from the company Boliden Somincor, concessionaire of the mine located in the Alentejo municipality of Castro Verde, revealed to the Lusa news agency that the participation in the strike, held on the 16th, 17th, 20th and 21st of June, was, in total, “less than 1% of the total number of workers” , amounting to “0.87%”.

Lusa also tried to obtain a reaction from the Mining Industry Workers Union (STIM), which called the strike, which has not been possible so far.

On June 17, in the assessment of the first two days of the strike, the union coordinator, Albino Pereira, had acknowledged that the numbers joining the strike were “very low”. “ Workers are very afraid of this new administration , they don’t know what awaits them and they are afraid of staying on strike”, he said at the time.

Despite the residual support, the person responsible for STIM stated that the strike in Neves-Corvo was “justifiable”.

The strike at the Neves-Corvo mine in Alentejo was called after the implementation, on June 16, of a new shift rotation model , with four days of work followed by four days off (4×4).

According to a statement from STIM, this decision violated “the company agreement that has been in force” since 2019, considering it “incomprehensible that the company does not serve the majority of workers, which reveals its total lack of respect and arrogance”.

The union structure also accused the Neves-Corvo concessionaire of intending to “extract more ore by sacrificing the health of its workers and preventing them from having a dignified family and social life”.

In statements to the regional newspaper Correio Alentejo , published on June 6 and consulted by Lusa, the general director of Boliden Somincor, Gunnar Nyström, said that the company consulted workers, “under the legally stipulated terms”, about the change to the shift rotation, which “is included in the company agreement that is in force” and “whose content was opportunely negotiated” with the union.

The manager added that “changing the shift rotation to 4×4 is an essential measure to improve Somincor’s safety rates and to increase the company’s production levels, reversing the negative trend seen in recent years”.

The Neves-Corvo mine produces mainly copper and zinc concentrates, as well as silver and lead. It is the largest zinc mine in Europe and the sixth largest copper mine on the European continent, as well as being the largest employer in the region, with around 2,000 workers.

The Alentejo mine is owned by the company Somincor, which Lundin Mining sold to the Swedish company Boliden, together with the Zinkgruvan mine in Sweden, for around 1.44 billion euros, in a deal completed on April 16.