Continuous working at Somincor requires restructuring of working time

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Somincor, a company which operates the copper and zinc mining complex of Neves Corvo in the Alentejo region of Portugal, wishes to introduce continuous working in the mines through a restructuring of working time. The miners are opposed to this change and, following a strike in July 1997, a compromise "preliminary agreement" has now been reached.

Owing to the progressive decline in the richness of the ore, the management of Somincor, a mining company employing roughly 1,000 workers, is considering the introduction of continuous working over the full seven days of the week, which it sees as the only way to ensure competitiveness in international markets and guarantee financial stability. Seven-day continuous working patterns have already been introduced at other European copper mines, such as AITIK in Sweden and Rio Tinto Minera in Spain.

Work at the Neves Corvo mine is currently organised into three daily shifts, from Monday to Friday or from Tuesday to Saturday, which means that miners work five days per week with two rest days. The new scheme would impose the introduction of a fourth shift and mean that the mine would work for seven days a week, which implies that, on a fairly regular basis, miners would be on duty for more than five consecutive days. They would lose Sunday as a rest day and have fewer days off each week.

Somincor miners at Neves Corvo do not accept this. For theSouthern Union of Mine Workers (Sindicato dos Trabalhadores da Indústria Mineira do Sul) which is affiliated to the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, CGTP-IN), this represents a very intense form of shiftwork. The union also believes that the proposed increase in the shift supplements is very low and does not compensate workers for the change.

However, for physical reasons and because of the lack of space in the galleries, it is possible to maintain current levels of copper and zinc production and profitability only by increasing working time.

The opposition to the continuous working system and the demand for compliance with the law on the 40-hour working week gave rise to a strike on 7 July 1997 - the first strike in eight years' activity at the mine - which lasted for five consecutive days with a significant participation rate by the workforce and involved losses for the company.

The Government, miners and the management of Somincor have now finally reached a "preliminary agreement" in which they envisage the creation of 100 new jobs and the revision of working hours.

Amongst other issues, the agreement establishes that each shift will work 7.5 hours per day and, on average, 37.5 hours per week. The agreement also guarantees miners the 104 days off per year that they had demanded (with 52 of these rest days falling on Saturdays), instead of the 91 that had been proposed under the continuous working system. The first Sunday shift is always a day off and the shift crews are rotated every 20 weeks. Every 20 weeks there are 10 Sundays off for each shift crew, which means that the number of days off that coincide with a Sunday is raised form 13 to 23.