RE:Long Article Out Today on VanguardiaHere is a machine translation of the article Schiff referenced.
Eco gold mining company, which has more than 20 years in exploratory phase for the project 'Angostura', is now facing a restructuring process which was forced after the ruling of the Constitutional Court, issued on 8 February, and on which mining is prohibited in the moors of the country. This staff reduction translates into 35 employees of the 65 that has administrative and at camp.
In this regard, Mark Moseley Williams, President of this company, confirmed to Vanguardia.com that with this ruling the future of Angosturas project is at risk. "With this uncertainty, we are forced to reduce our operations to a minimum while defining the situation. In this sense, the purpose of the application of collective dismissal raised with the Ministry of labor, obeys precisely the need to restock the legal procedure established for those cases in which, like this, is required to restructure a company".
As the President of Eco gold explains that during the past 20 years exploring "no we have been able to build a mining project, and extracting the first gram of gold", the Trade Union of mining workers of Santander, Sintramisan, States that "it is committing an outrage with employees".
"It's workers who are between 7 and 12 years working with the company, some have given his life to the project Angosturas, and they have always been defending the company in all instances. There are people with injuries described by the ARP as occupational diseases and some with over 60 years of age", said Freddy Gamboa, President of Sintramisan, and who stated that they are aspects that the Ministry of labour must take into account and analyze before making a decision.
However, the reality of the business is another. Mark Moseley Williams pointed out that the request for dismissal responds that the company, with 14 mining titles granted and registered in the national mining registry area of moorland, "has made an investment that exceeds 240 million dollars, and a dollar of that money has not be recovered".
The above - as luggage so the collective dismissal request presented to the Mintrabajo-"(...) It constitutes a circumstance of force majeure that puts the company in a situation of imminent to default on payments, being unable to develop its corporate purpose, and therefore the circumstances which give rise to employment contracts ceased to exist". (Read here the request).
Such a request expressed that this situation requires them to terminate the employment contract of the 54% of its staff, including both camp staff, such as administrative, represented in 35 posts. In addition, the situation facing the mining already seen its effects, as it has been made may payroll payment to workers at camp, as some of them stated to this newspaper.
Three meetings has held the management team of Eco gold with workers in the town of California, Santander, where the company operates. They discussed the possibility of a voluntary retirement, which is has not hosted any worker.
"We are concerned because in the meetings the President of the company has put into consideration the possible liquidation of the company, and with this they would lose the right of mining titles. We require technical and legal explanations because this generates a social and economic problem", said Freddy Gamboa, President of Sintramisan.
However, the Golden echo President not confirmed their withdrawal from the area, or the future of the Angostura project, considering that they are scenarios "which depend on the talks that are currently underway with the Ministry of Commerce, industry and tourism." I'd rather not refer to the issue as long as we are in conversations".
In this regard, the President of the Sintrametalrgica (a second Trade Union in the enterprise), Jaime Otlora, said that they are not in accordance with the redundancy and that request the Ministry of labour to reject this application.
"We are in the defense of the rights of workers because in Eco gold there are a good number of sick workers, and we are going to request to be allowed to continue to work into the recess to remove the project. "There are environmental maintenance you need to do the company and sick employees could continue to work in it", said Otalora.
Sintrametalurgico is another Mining Union has 15 employees in Eco gold, of which six have disease work, said its President. These workers take between four and five years working in the company, reason why shall submit a request to the Ministry of labour that is denied the collective dismissal.
The suspension of food in camp and transport in California, were benefits that have been suppressed to the workers because of the restructuring carried out Eco gold. In addition, according to Sintramisan, the payroll may not has been paid.
At the same time, workers who belong to trade unions have put circular videos on social networks, in which they or some of his relatives, manifested the alleged violation of rights as employees.
In this regard, Mark Moseley Williams said that labour rights have not been infringed and that for this reason attended the Ministry of labour.
"At any time we have violated the rights of our workers and this can certify it the Ministry of labour or any citizen. Instead, we have opened up spaces for direct dialogue and we have met with the mayors and councils of the municipalities of direct influence of the project (California, veins and Surat), to explain the situation of the company", he stressed.
This video picks up versions that have been taken by Sintramisan and which were sent to this wording: