Collahuasi Copper Miners Accept Wage Offer to End Chilean Strike

Dec. 7 （Bloomberg） -- Unionized workers at Anglo American Plc and Xstrata Plc’s Collahuasi venture in Chile are set to return to work after voting to end a month-long strike at the world’s third-largest copper mine.

Miners packed up tents and television sets yesterday at the abandoned school in the city of Iquique that served as the union’s de facto headquarters during the 32-day stoppage. They voted 521 in favour of the proposal and 398 against, the union said on its website. The offer includes a bonus of 14 million pesos （$29,000）, said a union official briefed on the matter.

“It was a win for the union movement in Chile,” union President Manuel Munoz told reporters after last night’s vote.

The strike started Nov. 5 and became the longest recorded at a major privately owned Chilean copper mine when it surpassed a 26-day stoppage at BHP Billiton Ltd.’s Escondida in 2006. While the company used non-union workers and contractors to help run the mine, prospects of an output cut helped drive copper to a record on the London Metal Exchange last month.

Union leaders will meet with the company today to discuss schedules for returning to work, Munoz said. The first workers may resume today, a union official, who declined to be named because he isn’t an authorized spokesman, said by telephone.

The company and union returned to the negotiating table Nov. 29 after individual talks with workers didn’t garner enough acceptances under Chilean law to end the strike. Chile’s Work Inspectorate issued a resolution last month for talks to resume.

Cia. Minera Dona Ines de Collahuasi SCM, the mine’s operating company, is “satisfied” with the result, spokeswoman Bernardita Fernandez said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Escondida, Grasberg

Collahuasi produced 535,000 metric tons last year, or 3.5 percent of global output, according to Standard Bank Plc. Its production is only surpassed by Escondida and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia.

Anglo American and Xstrata each own 44 percent of Collahuasi. A group led by Mitsui & Co. holds the remainder.

While the strike supported copper prices, a return to work probably won’t cause prices to plunge, said Jonathan Barratt, managing director of Commodity Broking Services Pty.

“We have very tight supply of the metal,” he said in a telephone interview from Sydney. “If anything people will see any negative reaction in the price as an opportunity to buy.”

The metal for delivery in three months climbed 0.5 percent to $8,769.50 a metric ton yesterday on the LME. Global inventories monitored by the LME, Shanghai Futures Exchange and the Comex have slumped 20 percent since the end of June to the lowest since November 2009.

--Editor: James Attwood, Jonathan Roeder