First strike in the history of Chilean gas company Gasco

For the first time in the 161 years of existence of the company the employees of Gasco went on strike, starting the 7th of December. After the companies refusal to move any inch closer the workers demands in the collective bargaining process and the dismissal of 30 employees to intimidate them, the overwhelming majority laid down their work last week.

With 97% of the employees of Gasco voting in favor of the strike, the decision reached last week could not have been much more decisive. Their protest and action is directed against the proposal of the company to raise the pay for their work by merely 0.7%. This however is unacceptable for many of the workers, as the prices for daily goods, transportation, food, education, etc. rise much more steeply. Hence, at the end of the day, most of the workers will have less money in their pockets then last year, even though they labor the same amount of time.

This is even more unacceptable as the company made a profit of 13 million US$ last year and any talk about worsening conditions because of "recession" and "crisis" is nothing but a blatant lie in the face of the workers. With this in mind, the workers entered the collective process of re-bargaining their wage. But not only was Gasco unwilling to move any inch closer to the workers demands, it also attempted to intimidate the workers. On the 6th of December, 30 of the workers (some of them working for more then five years in the company) were singled out and called in front of the HR department. There, they were being told that they are now fired and attempts were made to frighten them into signing settlements with the company. However, despite no coordination between the people laid off, none of them signed any settlement. The day later, nearly all employees were on strike.