22 February, 20171,000 workers at the Primero Mining Corporation in Durango, Mexico, are striking after negotiations with management on a new collective agreement failed.

Negotiations to revise the collective bargaining agreement began on 7 February. After agreeing on the pay and benefit scale, and with only general requests remaining, company management demanded that talks be restarted from zero on 12 February.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Los Mineros says that

after agreeing on very important points following after days of intensive negotiations, the Canadian company then backed out.

The strike was unanimously approved at a workers’ general meeting on 14 February, and is supported by the review commissions of locals and by the National Executive Committee.

The company issued a press release saying that although they had not yet succeeded in discussing questions such as profitability and productivity--including its intention to reduce the workforce--they did manage to achieve “good progress on a number of issues raised by the union.”

Los Mineros union has indicated that it remains ready to reinitiate a conciliatory dialogue with Primero to reach a solution, and that they will continue to defend the workers’ interests through protest actions.

Fernando Lopes, IndustriALL director, says: