New Clashes Erupt at Mexico's Cananea Copper Mine

Sep 9,(Reuters) -

Fresh clashes erupted on Wednesday between union workers and company contractors at the massive Cananea copper mine in northern Mexico leaving several people severely injured, the local government said.

The mine, owned by major copper producer Grupo Mexico, has been the site of tension after a three-year strike ended earlier this year. The striking miners were removed from the premises by federal police but have continued to protest outside the mine gates.

Grupo Mexico, which operates mines in Mexico, Peru and the United States, began hiring contract workers to repair damages to the mine but have faced resistance from dismissed union workers. Federal police now help guard the facilities.

Cananea's local government had said in a statement one contract worker had died of bullet wounds, but it later issued an official correction saying the contract worker survived the attack but was severely injured and in a hospital.

Nine others were injured in the two-day conflict and 26 people were arrested, the corrected statement said.

Cananea, near the border with Arizona, is the largest copper mine in Mexico but has not been producing since the labor dispute began in 2007. The mine has the capacity to produce 180,000 metric tons of copper annually but the company has an ambitious expansion plan there.

Grupo Mexico says it may have some copper output at Cananea by the end of this year but most analysts estimate it will take longer for production to restart.

BLAME GAME

The union said the contract workers sparked clashes, while the company blamed union members.

"We are informing and denouncing the aggression of the union .. for attacking contract workers with rocks and bullets who work at the mine," Grupo Mexico said in a statement.

The union's leader, Napoleon Gomez, is living in Canada to avoid arrest on corruption charges in Mexico, which he denies, saying he has been unfairly targeted for his labor activism.

"They have been trying to destroy our organization and confronted with this aggression (the miners) are defending themselves," Sergio Tolano, the president Cananea's union section, told Reuters.

Tolano said clashes, which began on Tuesday, had died down by Wednesday afternoon.
 

A state court granted workers an appeal to reverse their eviction in June from Cananea, but the company and Mexico's Labor Ministry says the appeal has no bearing on the mine's operations.

A separate conflict erupted recently at another Grupo Mexico facility in Sonora state after a group of miners were fired for supporting the national mining union, the United States Steelworkers said in a statement. The U.S. labor group supports the Mexican miners union.