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Zambia Konkola copper strike: only smelter working
By resourceINTEL · November 12, 2009 · 5:45 am · Leave a Comment
LUSAKA – A strike over wages by workers at Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), a unit of London-listed Vedanta Resources, continued on Thursday, halting most units at the facility, the company said.
KCM spokesman Rahur Kharkar said operations of the tailings leach plant, Nchanga underground mine and the concentrator had been halted by the industrial action.
Only the automated smelter was operating at the mine in Chingola, 380 km north of Lusaka, he said.
Output losses at KCM, which plans to produce 305 000 t of copper in 2009, will only be known after the company assesses lost production hours, Kharkar said.
“The miners reported at the plant in the morning but they have all dispersed after an inconclusive meeting with their union representatives. They are not working,” Kharkar told Reuters in an interview.
“We haven’t lost much in the two days of disturbances but the figures will only be known in due course.”
Kharkar said the KCM management and the Mine Workers Union of Zambia (MUZ) held emergency talks on Wednesday to find ways to end the strike, and the union leaders said they would convince the workers to end the strike.
Oswell Munyenyembe, the president of MUZ said union leaders had so far failed to convince the workers to resume work.
At least 30 miners were detained on Wednesday after they rioted and damaged 16 houses and three cars belonging to expatriate families.
The workers had also burned two vehicles and demolished shelters for employees of a Chinese contractor at KCM, Zambia’s largest copper producer.
The workers, who were demanding higher pay, also looted shops within the mine.
In 2008, workers at KCM carried out similar action during wage negotiations between the unions and management.
KCM, which operates the Konkola copper mine, the satellite Fitwaola mine and the Nampundwe pyrite mine, has also started reclaiming refractory ores at the Nchanga open pit to produce more copper…read more at the Mining Weekly
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