A nationwide strike by up to 70,000 miners, which had been due to start at midnight tonight, has been averted. Following negotiations between the Peruvian government and union representatives on Friday, the threatened walk out has been postponed, avoiding a clash with a presidential summit with European and Latin American leaders which is taking place in Lima this week.
“We’ve suspended it for 15 days,” Luis Castillo, head of the country’s leading federation of mining unions, told Reuters. “We have made a determination that it would be convenient to give some time to the government and Congress.” Castillo said union leaders will meet with Congressional representatives and President Alan Garcia’s prime minister on Monday to try to forge a permanent settlement that would include Congress approving a bill favored by the unions. The Congressional bill would lift a cap on profits that mining companies can share with workers. Unions also want the government to change rules for early retirement, clamp down on outsourcing by companies and give workers the right to enroll in state-run pension funds.
The strike had been principally aimed at Peru’s major copper companies and it was not clear whether Peru’s only tin producer, Minsur SA, would have been affected. Minsur produced 9,675 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate in January-March, 0.4% higher than in the first quarter of 2007.
