Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera workers at this mine were paid around 20% higher wages than at other Chilean mines, due to its poor safety record. The San José Mine is located 45 kilometers northwest of Copiapó. It began operations in 1889. In 1957, Jorge Kemeny Letay, a Hungarian immigrant founded the San Esteban Mining Company (). The San José Mine () is a small copper-gold mine located near Copiapó, Atacama Region, Chile. The mine was the site of a 2010 collapse which trapped 33 miners underground. Its workings are reached by a long sloping roadway with many spiral turns (a diagram shows ten turns),
Western Federation of Miners next decade, to the point where it had over two hundred locals in thirteen states. However, a struggle against mine owners in Leadville served to radicalize WFM leadership. Representatives of the Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the Western Federation of Miners, asked for a wage increase of fifty cents per day for all mine workers not already making three dollars per day. The union felt justified, for fifty cents a day had been cut from the miners' wages during the depression of 1893. Negotiations broke down and 968 miners walked out. Mine owners, who had formed a