In the rush to get copper production from the Cananea mine back on world markets, is Grupo México disregarding the safety and health of contract workers? So it seems by an apparent undocumented rash of on-the-job accidents and injuries in the short six weeks since federal police opened the mine in Sonora State for the company.

Following a 16 July accident in which a sub-contract worker was hospitalised after a five-metre fall, military police secured the perimeter of the hospital, not allowing anybody to enter. When leaders of Section 65 of the Mexican National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM) tried to lend assistance to the injured worker, they were turned away by “a violent and arrogant grenadier,” according to a report.

Workers of Los Mineros at Cananea claim there have been 20 such accidents with injuries since mine rehabilitation began following the military takeover on 6 June. But this cannot be confirmed because safety reporting, if it exists, is never verified. This non-transparency at a major copper recovery project is a pox on Grupo México and a pox on federal Labour and Interior Ministries, and on the State of Sonora, the latter governmental agencies that have all taken up reconciliation roles.

The pitiful irony is that Grupo México and federal police used brute force to reopen the Cananea mine on 6 June, crushing a strike that began over health and safety in 2007. Now they are at breakneck pace, using disposable contract workers, to re-start Cananea at a time – during first quarter 2010 – that world copper supply fell short of refined usage.

In a media interview in late June, Grupo México’s Isaac Lopez Arzola, the director-general of Southern Copper’s Mexicana de Cobre S.A., which functions as the company’s copper operating and servicing subsidiary, said 700 workers are now employed at the mine, all non-direct to Grupo México and Southern Copper, and the responsibility of individual contractors. That number is expected to climb to 1,700.

Compared to a global investment strategy totaling US$2.8 billion, Grupo México is spending only US$114 million to bring Cananea into production, rushing to get it done by first quarter 2011 to meet continued high copper prices. In turn, Southern Copper will double its global copper output over the next few years, making it the world’s third largest copper producer.

With copper prices doubling in early 2010 over copper pricing in early 2009, and considering that every 1% jump in the copper price equates to an estimated 1.3% rise in Grupo México’s equity value, should the company concern itself with safety, or the injuries of non-direct workers?

Apparently not, except to surround them with militia so their stories cannot be heard.