CHILE: Submerged Strike

The miners' demand for a 55-peso ($2.20) daily minimum wage had been rejected; the company's counter offer of a 15% pay rise (16¢) had been turned down. A month's patient mediating by the Government had ended in failure. Last week, the coal miners of Lota stayed in their grubby little dirt-floor huts on the edge of the Pacific and the strike was on.

The Life. Government files contain reports on the miseries of Lota—its mine galleries reaching out under the sea, its underhoused town, its undernourished children. One of the reports says that no Chilean family can subsist on less than...

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