Within the framework of the national strike of Codelco workers due to the closure of the Ventanas Smelter, in the Valparaíso region, the general secretary of the Federation of Copper Workers (a national trade union organization that represents all the workers of Codelco), Héctor Milla, made some harsh statements against the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric, treating him, among other things, as a “little man” and a “hustle”.
Milla’s statements were made in front of another group of workers who were listening to the statements of union leaders. In fact, he himself says that “that’s why I told them not to make me talk, don’t stop me up front”, eliciting laughter and cheers from those present.
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Milla started by recalling the support given to the then presidential candidate Gabriel Boric for the second round. “We had hope. We are going to support this government. We are going to support Mr. Boric. quite – and I mean it responsibly – quite a bit of a man. Quite a bit of a man, Mr. President. We treated you like a gentleman and you sold us out. And we are not willing”.
“These are the copper workers. Today we come to support Windows, at the national level all the divisions are detained. We are going to continue to detain the country, because I told you through your undersecretary. To Mr. Jackson I said ‘by God that he has bad advisers, for God’s sake he has bad advisers,’ he doesn’t know how to do the math. We are going to show you irresponsibility, because this strike is going to start in copper and it is going to end up being a national strike, gentlemen. From here, from Windows, from where we are suffering, we call on all the contractors, all the people who work with us every day,” he added.
“Hopefully one day, as I’ve always said, we’ll all be the same. That these gentlemen let us level up. Upward. Just as gender equality is being said today, and the gentlemen at the national level who are for women and they make tremendous stories and it turns out that they hire them and hire them with 50% of what one earns. Where is equality? That’s why I told them don’t make me talk, don’t stop me here in front, “he recalled.
Finally, Milla recalled the President’s stage as a “penguin”: “That is the truth that is happening in the country. In a country where the penguins left long ago, my penguin children left, and those penguins are directing us. Penguin Lords This is serious. This is the country. It is the country that you asked for. Now you have it. Know how to lead it, because if you don’t know how to lead it, we are going to take it away from you, gentlemen.”
It should be noted that the closing of the Ventanas Foundry was even planned in 2019 by the then president Sebastián Piñera, within the framework of the COP25 that was going to take place in the country and the one that finally could not be carried out due to the social outbreak of october. “Ventanas loses millions and millions of dollars every year, pollutes and causes problems”, he declared, since despite being acquired by Codelco from Enami for 450 million dollars in 2005, it had accumulated losses of more than 400 million dollars in the last decade.
