Miners at all three of Southern Copper's Peruvian divisions will begin a strike on April 10 after labor talks failed, a union official said Monday.
Workers at Southern's Cuajone and Toquepala mines and Ilo smelter plan to press for a larger share of profits, better healthcare and working conditions, union representative Ricardo Juarez told S&P Global Platts. It will be the first strike since the unions at the three sites merged to form a single labor organization, Juarez said.
"The company is convinced this act lacks legal backing and that consequently, the strike, if it happens, will be declared illegal by the labor authorities," Southern said in a filing with Peru's securities regulator, SMV.
Workers at Freeport-McMoRan's Peruvian Cerro Verde copper mine ended a 21-day labor stoppage last week after reaching an agreement on similar issues.
Southern, which has operations in Peru and Mexico, is counting on expansions at three of its mines to boost annual copper production to 1 million mt by 2019.
Southern boosted its copper output by 19.3% year on year to 917,790 mt in 2016, while zinc production increased 19.5% to 73,984 mt and silver output rose 21.7% to 16.2 million oz. Molybdenum fell 7% to 21,736 mt.
