[miningmx.com] – PRODUCTION at the Zambian flagship copper mine of
Canada’s First Quantum Minerals has ground to a halt because of a strike over wages,
the Zambian labour minister said on Friday.
Workers at the Kansanshi mine, Zambia’s largest copper mine, which produced
231,000 tonnes of the red metal in 2010, downed tools on Thursday, Fackson
Shamenda said in a statement.
“There is a deadlock in salary negotiations. The union is demanding a 17% salary
increment and the management is offering 13%,” Shamenda said.
Kansanshi mine company spokesman Godfrey Msiska separately said workers had
blocked the entrance to the mine and nobody was allowed to enter the premises.
“There is nothing happening,” Msiska said. “The workers have blocked the entrance to
the mine and we are not producing copper.”
Union officials and the mine management will meet Zambia’s vice president Guy Scott
later on Friday over the deadlock, Charles Mukuka, acting president of the Mine
Workers’ Union of Zambia, told Reuters.
Glencore International’s Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia in February agreed a 17 pay
rise with unions, almost triple the rate of inflation.
Konkola Copper Mines, part of London-listed Vedanta Resources, awarded a similar
pay increase in January.
