CWU Meet Chilean Miner

Branch officials were invited to a civic reception at Liverpool Town Hall this week to celebrate a ‘Working Class Hero'. The hero in question was one of the youngest trapped Chilean Miners Carlos Bugueno Alrama who used his skills to repair some the equipment sent down to keep them all alive, his terrifying ordeal has changed his life forever.

Carlos is a very quiet and humble man who is one of sixteen children back home in Chile and apparently still follows his mother's instruction. Carlos had travelled down to Liverpool after attending the Durham Miners Gala at the weekend and was certainly impressed with the City of Liverpool.

Carlos told the reception he has been welcomed into the City and had attended a TUC event the night before at Chilean Restaurant Valparaiso in Hardman Street and had been overwhelmed by the support and wishes from the people of Liverpool.

The last piece he finished with left everyone in the room in total shock as Carlos told us that during the sixty nine days he and his colleagues were trapped in the mine the company refused to pay them, the reason because they hadn't been working when they were trapped. Even now the company is refusing to pay them so a group of Labour MP's are due to visit the Chilean Embassy to try and get their pay reinstated. With all that happened to them you would imagine even the worst employer in the world would have paid them during that difficult time.