Union: Southern Copper strike curtailing operations by 80%
Workers at Southern Copper, the second major miner of the metal in Peru to face industrial action this year, began a strike Monday that has affected operations at all three of its units by at least 80%, a union official said.
Employees at Southern's Cuajone and Toquepala mines and Ilo smelter are pressuring for a bigger share of profits and better healthcare and working conditions after three rounds of labor talks failed, union general secretary Jorge Campos told BNamericas.
"We've held negotiations, but they haven't been fruitful," Campos said by telephone. "This is the result of years of mistreatment by the company."
A mechanics' union at Toquepala plans to join the strike on April 12, Campos said, adding workers and company officials are scheduled to meet at the labor ministry for government-brokered talks this week.
Workers are also demanding the company withdraw security cameras from mining trucks and that the company stops firing workers when they have used up their comp days, according to Campos. Male employees are often attended to by gynecologists at the company's three hospitals due to the lack of medical staff, he said.
Southern has hired emergency work crews in a bid to keep operations going, Campos added. The company's press office did not immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment.
Workers at Freeport-McMoRan's Cerro Verde mine ended a 21-day strike last month after reaching an agreement on similar issues.
Southern, which has operations in Peru and Mexico, boosted its 2016 earnings by 5.4% to US$777mn last year due to stronger metals prices and production and lower costs. Sales rose 6.6% to US$5.38bn in 2016.
Copper output increased 19.3% to 917,790t last year, while zinc production rose 19.5% to 73,984t and that of silver was up 21.7% to 16.2Moz. Molybdenum production fell 7% to 21,736t. In Peru, the company's copper production was 312,859t
While Southern has been focusing on Mexican projects such as the US$3.5bn expansion of its Buenavista mine, the company is also working on a US$1.2bn Toquepala expansion and US$216mn Cuajone expansion in Peru.
The company is counting on expansions in Peru and Mexico to help boost annual copper output to 1Mt by 2019. The copper market has been rattled by strikes at Cerro Verde and BHP Billiton's Escondida mine in Chile, in addition to a halt in operations at Freeport's Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
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