Asarco union to try revised proposal (September 12, 2005)

United Steelworkers negotiators readied a proposal to take to management at Asarco, the troubled subsidiary of Grupo Mexico (GMEXICOB-M), which could bring the workforce back at the company’s southwestern United States mines and metallurgical plants.

Asarco, which filed for protection under United States bankruptcy laws on Aug. 9, saw the main part of its workforce walk out on July 2 after the Steelworkers rejected company demands for concessions, primarily on benefits. The union said its new proposal did not provide for any concessions.

Grupo Mexico announced on Aug. 10 that Asarco was applying for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, “in order to be able to face its financial, labour, environmental and asbestos liabilities.” Pending decisions on environmental cleanup and asbestos-exposure litigation had placed the company in an uncertain financial position, the parent company said.

The union countered that Grupo Mexico had “stripp[ed] Asarco of its profitable Peruvian assets” in its 2003 restructuring of Southern Peru Copper (PCU-N), leaving Asarco with uneconomic U.S. operations and a suitcase of environmental and pension liabilities. Cleanups in Montana and Washington state were on hold after the bankruptcy-code application, but resumed in a few days.