Workers OK CLP15,000/Day Wage
SANTIAGO (Dow Jones) – Workers at Northern Chile’s Antofagasta port voted early Friday afternoon in favor of their employers’ latest wage hike offer, ending an eight day strike that had stalled more than 20,000 tons of copper.
Union leader Manuel Araya told Dow Jones Newswires that the port will resume operations at the second shift, which starts at 3:30 p. m. local time (1930 GMT).
The workers agreed to a minimum wage of 15,000 pesos ($1=CLP642.20) per shift, after originally demanding a daily wage of CLP17,000. They had been making a minimum wage of 12,000 pesos per shift.
The walkout at Antofagasta, one of Chile’s principal points of departure for copper, had stalled earlier this week a shipment of 20,000 tons of copper destined for the U. S. East Coast. Another 26,000 tons of the industrial metal were set to be shipped out Friday.
Port officials couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.
Mines affected by the strike included Escondida, owned by Australia’s Broken Hill Proprietary Co. (BHP), Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) and a Mitsubishi-led Japanese consortium, and Mantos Blancos, owned by Anglo American PLC (ANGLY).
The Chuquicamata division of Chile’s state-owned miner Corporacion Nacional del Cobre de Chile, or Codelco also suffered copper shipment delays because of the labor dispute.
Chile, the world’s largest copper producer, turns out about one-third of western world’s copper output.
