BHP has taken the union at its Spence copper mine in Chile to court, seeking compensation over two stoppages the company says were illegal, Kalkine reported. The filing follows a week in which BHP settled with supervisors at Escondida, averting a strike at the world’s largest copper operation hours before it was due to start, a resolution this site published on Wednesday and updated on Thursday.
The contrast is deliberate. Escondida, at well over a million tonnes a year, is the asset BHP cannot afford to stop; Spence, at roughly a fifth of that scale, is where a legal precedent on illegal stoppages is worth more than a quiet settlement. Chilean labour’s leverage is at a cyclical high, with copper prices near records strengthening every bargaining table in the country.
BHP shares fell on Thursday in a broad resources selloff before the Spence news, down 0.43 percent in the site tables, with Rio Tinto down 1.14 percent. The miners are lagging their metals: copper rose 1.87 percent in the latest session while the copper miners basket was flat, up 0.01 percent.