The now 19-day-old strike at the BHP Billiton (BHP)-controlled Escondida copper mine in Chile will hurt the local economy as the mine accounts for 2.5% of the country's gross national produce, the company's chief copper executive said in Friday's El Mercurio newspaper.

The mine is also the country's largest private tax payer, contributing more than $1 billion in the first half of the year.

"The total or partial shutdown of Escondida will undoubtedly affect the Chilean economy," BHP Billiton Base Metals President Diego Hernandez told the newspaper.

While the company has been open to talks at every step, the union's attitude in these negotiations has been less the responsible, the executive said.

"The country saw the union leaders' smiling faces on the evening news, after they left negotiations Sunday, and a few minutes later their calls to vote against the offer on the grounds that it was a joke," Hernandez said in reference to the company's sweetened fourth offer presented Sunday, hours before the union held a general assembly.

At that general assembly, the union told workers to cast their ballots against the proposal at a Monday vote.

The union rejected the offer with a 98% vote against, and prolonged the strike. Talks broke down since that vote and have not resumed since.

"No one can, responsibly, call the historic and attractive offer a joke," Hernandez is quoted as saying in La Tercera newspaper Friday.

Market analysts agree that the Escondida talks will set a precedent for upcoming contract negotiations at several of Corporacion Nacional del Cobre de Chile's, or Codelco, mines.