Reuters) - Peru's mining workers have agreed to start an indefinite national strike on July 19 in rejection of the government's "anti-labor standards," the union's trade union general secretary Ricardo Juarez said on Friday.
The leader of the National Federation of Miners, Metallurgists and Iron and Steel Workers of Peru stated that the organized employees of the most important producers of the sector voted in favor of the strike in a national assembly.
The union is made up of 110 unions and more than 40,000 workers, according to Jurez.
Peru is the world's second largest producer of copper, zinc and silver and is the sixth gold. Mining is the engine of the local economy because its exports account for almost 60% of all shipments in the country.
The national strike would be the first to be faced by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former banker seeking to raise private investment to help a slowing local economy.Government representatives were not immediately available to comment on the protest.
In Peru, there are world-class mining companies such as Southern Copper of the Grupo Mxico and Cerro Verde, whose unions held a strike in April to demand labor improvements.
Also operating in the country are the Laguna Norte gold mines of Barrick Gold Corp., the world's largest gold miner, and Yanmontcha of Newmont Mining; Antamina copper controlled by BHP Billiton Ltd, and the polymetallic Milpo of Brazil's Votorantim, among others.