Mine workers across Mexico waged a 24-hour strike Thursday, hoping to achieve better safety standards and to improve collective labor's footing in the industry, a union official said. With the majority of the union's 34,000 members engaged in the walkout, the union maintains that the strike will affect all of Mexico's mining companies, including Grupo Mexico SAB, a major copper producer, and Industrias Penoles SA, the world's top silver producer. The union also includes workers of steel plants owned by Arcelor Mittal in the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas. Safety at Mexican mines has come under increased scrutiny after 63 miners were killed last year in an underground explosion in a northern mine.
See "Miners Across Mexico Strike for Safety", Associated Press, The New York Times, July 5, 2007