Unionised workers at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine in northern Chile, went on strike on Tuesday 13 August. If the strike continues, the copper market could lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

Workers from Union No.1 at the Escondida mine, which means ‘hidden’, in northern Chile went on strike on Tuesday 13 August. The Escondida mine is a major source of copper, accounting for 5 per cent of the world’s total mined copper. The mine takes its name from the rich ore deposits ‘hidden’ beneath the Atamaca desert. While it is known that 90 per cent of the workers at Australia-based BHP, the world’s largest copper mining company, are members of the union, BHP, which owns 60 per cent of the shares in the Escondida mine, was shaken by the strike. The workers’ demands include a reduction in working days, an increase in bonuses and compensation payments, and the distribution of 1% of the mine’s shares to the workers. The distribution of shares to the workers, which is one of the main points of contention, amounts to $35,000 per worker. During the dispute, BHP offered the workers a bonus of $28,900, but the workers did not take up the offer, which was well below their expectations of $35,000.

BHP declares state of emergency

The process of reaching an agreement between BHP and the union continues. The company, in disagreement with the union over the demands, has declared a state of emergency and is continuing to mine with non-union labour. The union responded by accusing BHP of breaking strike rules by using reserve labour and demanding ‘an immediate end to this anti-union practice’.

In a statement, BHP said it had invited the union to resume talks on Tuesday, but that the invitation had gone unanswered, and that it had implemented its contingency plan and continued mining operations with non-union workers on minimum hours. On 14 August, the company offered the union to suspend the strike until 8pm on 15 August if negotiations continued. However, the union is not in favour of suspending the strike, even temporarily. According to the union, BHP has placed too many conditions on the resumption of negotiations, while at the same time replacing workers and engaging in anti-union activities. The union described the company’s demands and conditions as “making it impossible to resume talks” and complained that the company had given it too little time to assess the conditions and make a decision.

‘BHP could lose $795m if strike drags on’

Following the start of the strike, the French news agency AFP reported today that BHP shares had fallen by almost 1 per cent. US investment bank Goldman Sachs highlighted that the company would lose at least $250 million if the strike lasted 10 days, while Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual highlighted the union’s strike in 2017. According to BTG Pactual, if the current strike lasts as long as the one in 2017, BHP’s daily loss could be between $25m and $30m. The Brazilian investment bank noted in its report that the current situation is also damaging Chile’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Goldman Sachs estimated that if the strike lasted 44 days, the damage would reach USD 795 million.

Copper stock markets are shaky

In addition to the damage to the company, it is also interesting to see how the copper market will be affected by this strike. The copper market was shaken by the closure of the Panamanian copper company Cobre Panama in the final months of last year. If the current strike at the Escondida mine, which is very important to the market, has a similar result to the copper price spike caused by the strike in 2017, it could be very damaging to the market. According to the Australian Mining news agency, the Copper Exchange is struggling to hold on to its gains from the Covid-19 period. Despite the risk of disruption, copper prices are currently holding steady at the London Metal Exchange’s announced price of USD 8,968.50 per tonne, in line with weak demand from China. However, this could change if the strike continues.

A proposal to break up Alphabet-owned Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department following a landmark court ruling that the company has monopolised the online search market.

According to Bloomberg, the move would be Washington’s first attempt to break up a company for illegal monopolisation since the failed attempt to break up Microsoft two decades ago.

Less serious options include forcing Google to share more data with rivals and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in artificial intelligence products, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.

Alphabet’s shares fell 3.8% as of 10:13 a.m. in New York yesterday, the biggest drop since August 5, when a federal judge ruled the company had an illegal monopoly in the search market.

Android and Chrome could be divested if there is no fragmentation

Regardless, the government is almost certain to seek a ban on the specific types of contracts at the heart of its case against Google.

If the Justice Department insists on a break-up plan, the units most likely to be divested are the Android operating system and Google’s Chrome web browser, officials said.

Officials are also considering forcing a possible sale of the AdWords platform, which the company uses to sell text ads.

Google has said it will appeal the 5 August ruling, but Mehta ordered both sides to begin planning for the second phase of the case, which will include the government’s proposals to restore competition, including a possible motion to dismiss.

The US plan will have to be accepted by Mehta, who will order the company to comply with it. A forced break-up of Google would be the largest break-up of a US company since the break-up of AT&T in the 1980s.

Justice Department lawyers advising companies affected by Google’s practices have expressed concern in interviews that the company’s dominance in search gives it an advantage in developing artificial intelligence technology.

As part of the solution, the government may try to stop the company from forcing websites to allow their content to be used for some of Google’s artificial intelligence products in order to appear in search results.

Google to sign consent decrees for Gmail and Play Store

Divestment of the Android operating system, which is used on some 2.5 billion devices worldwide, is one of the most frequently discussed remedies by Justice Department lawyers. In his ruling, Mehta found that Google requires device makers to sign agreements to provide access to its applications, such as Gmail and the Google Play Store.

These agreements also require Google’s search widget and Chrome browser to be permanently installed on devices, effectively preventing other search engines from competing.

Mehta’s ruling follows a December jury verdict in California that found the company had monopolised the distribution of Android apps. The judge in that case has not yet ruled.

The Federal Trade Commission, which also enforces antitrust laws, filed a brief in the case this week, saying in a statement that Google should not be allowed to “reap the rewards of unlawful monopolisation”.

Google has paid companies up to $26 billion to make its search engine the default on devices and web browsers, including $20 billion to Apple.

Google’s huge advertising revenues also in the crosshairs

Mehta’s ruling also revealed that Google has a monopoly on so-called search text ads, which appear at the top of search results pages to attract users to websites.

These ads are sold through Google Ads, which was renamed AdWords in 2018, and allows marketers to run ads for specific search terms related to their business.

According to testimony at last year’s hearing, about two-thirds of Google’s total revenue comes from search advertising, and will exceed $100 billion by 2020.

If the Justice Department does not require Google to sell AdWords, it may require interoperability requirements that would allow it to run smoothly on other search engines, the people said.

Google could be forced to share more data

Another option would be to require Google to transfer or licence its data to competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing or DuckDuckGo.

According to Mehta, Google’s contracts not only ensure that the search engine receives the most user data (16 times more than its nearest competitor), but this influx of data also prevents its rivals from improving their search results and competing effectively.

Recently introduced digital gatekeeping rules in Europe imposed a similar requirement on Google to make some of its data available to third party search engines. The company has publicly stated that sharing data could raise privacy concerns for users, so it only provides information on searches that meet certain thresholds.

Requiring monopolists to give competitors some access to technology has been a remedy in previous cases. In the first case brought by the Justice Department against AT&T in 1956, the company was required to grant royalty-free licences to its patents.

In the antitrust case against Microsoft, the settlement required the technology giant to make some of its applications, called application programming interfaces or APIs, available to third parties for free.

APIs are used to enable software programs to communicate and exchange data effectively.

Google uses data to develop artificial intelligence

For years, websites have given Google’s web crawler access to ensure they appear in the company’s search results. But recently, some of that data has been used to help Google improve its artificial intelligence.

Last autumn, Google created a tool that allows websites to block scraping for AI, after companies complained.

But this opt-out doesn’t apply to everything. In May, Google announced that some searches will now come with ‘AI overviews’, narrative answers that save people the trouble of clicking through various links. The AI-powered panel appears below queries and provides summarised information from Google search results across the web.

Google does not allow website publishers to opt out of appearing in AI Overviews because it is a ‘feature’ of search, not a separate product. Sites can opt out of Google’s use of snippets, but this applies to both search and AI Overviews.

A snippet is a piece of source code that does not work on its own, but is used as a shortcut in code.

After the re-establishment of bilateral relations between the US and Cuba under Barack Obama and Raul Castro, relations between Washington and Havana have stumbled again under Joe Biden.

In May, the White House allowed Cuban officials to visit Miami International Airport and tour its security facilities, and removed Cuba from the US list of countries ‘not fully cooperating with counter-terrorism efforts’.

The Treasury Department also implemented the 2022 rule, which allows Cuban entrepreneurs to access American banking services and financial platforms.

These were some of the most significant overtures to Havana since the Obama administration, but the White House says it is not ready to go further, according to POLITICO.

A senior administration official argued that there is still a wide gap between Washington and Havana over the Cuban government’s ‘human rights record’ and that this gap must be bridged for the United States to take further steps.

“We have not seen any willingness on the part of the Cuban government to make a major gesture that would lead to a significant thaw in relations,” the official said.

Havana, however, says the ball is in Washington’s court. Cuban diplomats in Washington argue that the Biden administration has ‘capriciously’ eased restrictions that affect only a limited segment of Cuban society. They also express frustration that Washington is ignoring the bigger problems in the bilateral relationship, namely the designation of Cuba as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’.

Lianys Torres Rivera, charge d’affaires of the Cuban embassy in Washington, “Cuba has communicated to the US government through public and private channels that we are ready to sit down and discuss issues of bilateral importance that are priorities for both peoples. What we are asking for is respect and non-interference in our internal affairs,” said in a statement.

POLITICO recalls that historically, early Democratic administrations avoided extending an olive branch to Havana for fear of offending the more than one million Cuban exiles living in Florida.

But Cuban-American voters, who are generally hostile to the revolution, have seen their influence on candidates’ policies diminish as Florida increasingly favours Republican candidates and Democrats prioritise Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.