Workers at Antofagasta Minerals’s Zaldivar copper mine in Chile have voted in favour of strike action after rejecting a pay offer, the mine’s union said on Friday.
The union said in a statement that 99% of its members had rejected a collective pay offer and a strike had been set for July 15, pending government mediation.
The union said it "regretted" the need for a strike, when the Chilean economy is in the doldrums and mining is among its primary earners, but claimed Antofagasta Minerals was attempting to strip workers’ contracts of existing benefits in the latest negotiations.