Summary Authorities confirmed police had opened fire on protesters, but said nothing about a worker dying.
SANTIAGO (AFP) - A worker died during protests as part of a strike against Chile s state mining company Codelco, officials said Friday.
A union said the man was shot in the leg by riot police and later died of a heart attack.
Authorities confirmed police had opened fire on protesters, but said nothing about a worker dying.
Another employee was injured, Codelco said without specifying how.
Contract workers at the world s largest copper producer began the strike four days ago to demand wage increases.
They have been trying to block access to several of the company s largest mines.
The worker died at a facility called Division Salvador in the northern Atacama region. That division is Codelco s least productive.
The death was confirmed by a prosecutor, Julio Artigas, who spoke in a radio interview.
The Confederation of Copper Workers identified the dead man as Nelson Quichillao Lopez and said he was shot by police special forces who confronted protesting workers overnight.
Atacama mayor Miguel Vargas said the official police report on the incident states that officers opened fire because protesters were driving heavy equipment toward an officer who was lying on the ground.
The El Salvador mining site is in the Andes mountains 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) north of the capital Santiago.
The strikers work for Codelco contractors and subcontractors, and are pressing for higher pay and other benefits enjoyed by workers directly employed by the state mining company.
Codelco, which produces around 11 percent of the world s copper, has rejected those demands.
"An increase in those benefits and their associated costs is not compatible with the current conditions of the copper market," Codelco CEO Nelson Pizarro said this week.
Copper prices have tumbled from peaks reached at the height of a commodity boom, and the company has announced plans to cut spending by $1 billion in 2015.
Chile produces some 5.8 million tonnes of copper a year, about one third of the world s production.
