Workers at Chilean state company copper company Codelco struck a deal with government officials late Wednesday ending a daylong strike. The unions of the Chuquicamata Division said they joined the national strike day called in conjunction with the Coppers Workers Foundation, which included union workers from each of Codelco’s divisions.
The stoppage was scheduled to last for 48 hours.
Juan Olguín, president of the federation, said the government of Sebastian Pinera agreed to a national roundtable aimed at improving work conditions at the state-run miner.
“Given that the government has complied with our demand for a national workgroup, we have called to end the strike,” Olguin said, as reported by Reuters. “We need to get back to normalcy in this country.”
The strike earlier in the day shut down Codelco’s Andina copper mine near Santiago, and also impeded its Ventanas copper smelting division.
The company also said its Salvador division had operated only “partially.”
Mining Minister Baldo Prokurica said it was too early to assess the impacts of the union strike on Codelco’s production.
Several miners, including BHP Group Ltd., Anglo American Plc, Teck Resources Ltd., also have operations in Chile.
Shift workers at BHP’s Escondida copper mine walked off the job for several hours. Any impact on production by the short walk-off was likely to be recuperated in subsequent days, the union told Reuters.
Copper producer Antofagasta Plc said on Wednesday protests in Chile could cut its production by about 5,000 metric tons, equivalent to less than 3% of third-quarter output, due to delays in supplies and travel disruptions for workers, according to Reuters.
Anglo American said its Los Bronces mine had to “adjust operations,” but that it continued to operate normally.
Teck told Reuters in a statement that “there had been no material impact to Teck´s operations in Chile due to recent protests.”
