San José Mine dignity of the workers are established." San José Mine The San José Mine () is a small copper-gold mine located near Copiapó, Atacama Region, Chile. The mine became known internationally for its collapse in 2010, which trapped 33 miners underground. Its workings are reached by a long sloping roadway with many spiral turns (a diagram shows ten turns), not by a vertical mineshaft. The San José Mine is located 45 kilometers northwest of Copiapó. The mine began operations in 1889. In 1957, Jorge Kemeny Letay, a Hungarian immigrant founded the San Esteban Mining Company (). According to Terra, the mine's
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