The government not only went after him with a vengeance, they launched an ugly, aggressive attack on the union itself, freezing its bank accounts, declaring all strikes to be illegal (including sending in federal troops to break them up), and exhorting mine employers to replace Los Mineros with company-sponsored lackey unions.
Under a deal negotiated with the Palmer United party to repeal the mining tax, employer superannuation contributions will be frozen at 9.5percentnt until 2021 when they increase to 10percentnt.
But now the city of Kiruna in northern Sweden has joined with its largest employer, mining company LKAB, to warm its homes cheaply using the factory's leftover heat.
The chemical and mining industries, once significant employers, have declined in importance.
However, employers in mining have shown a willingness to be progressive, with nearly 61% of them having a strategy on gender equality and 34.3% doing a pay gap analysis (compared with 19.1% across all sectors).
A body called the Odendaal Commission organized separate development, which led to the creation of "homeland" authorities that benefited a new black elite (as in the 1980s did government wages and salaries for teachers, nurses, and black-area administrators and troops and a wage increase by large employers in mining and finance).
The North East has a similar industrial history - and like Scotland had to cope with the decline of traditional employers like mining and shipbuilding.
Phosphate is still the island's biggest employer, but mining is on the wane, and some locals are trying to develop an eco-tourism industry.
July was a bad month for the leisure and hospitality, government employer and mining sectors, which together cut a net 6,100 positions.
Once a thriving mining community, the major employer is now a sprawling Amazon "fulfilment centre", and parts of Kelty measure as among the most deprived in Scotland.
