Special Metals Pages

Friday, 1 January 2010

Altonorte and Union No 1 reach agreement

The Altonorte Metallurgical Complex announced that the Union 1 workers have accepted the company’s offer of having a new 3 year contract.

The company’s offer was submitted by a vote taken by the voters in the Labour Union 1 at a conference held and it includes a 2% alteration in base salaries, an end of negotiation bonus of CLP 2,400,000, a soft loan of CLP 2,040,000 and an annual production bonus of CLP 750,000 among other benefits.

Mr José Urrutia GM of Altonorte stated ‘the offer presented to the workers represents the best effort the company could make to enhance salaries and benefits, considering the complexities of the market for copper concentrate smelters’.
Also that “the total value offered is equal to the last offer we presented in December 11, 2009.”
Mr Urrutia added ‘I was satisfied about reaching this agreement through dialogue between the parties’

He said “I was always convinced we could agree a collective contract that would be sustainable over time through dialogue and in a climate of respect, which is what finally happened.”
The prior collective contract with Labour Union No. 1 had expired on December 18th 2009 and the union had been on strike since December 28th 2009.

274 workers belong to Labour Union No 1, which represents about 40% of the company’s own workers at the metallurgical complex.
Altonorte is a metallurgical complex which doesn’t contain a mine but provides treatment of raw materials and alternative materials, copper concentrates and other mining by products to obtain copper anodes, sulphuric acid, and molybdenumoxide.