At the Chambishi Copper Smelter in Zambia about 600 workers have stopped work as they demand higher wages. The joint venture is owned by China Nonferrous Metals Corporation and Yunnan Copper Industry and is situated about 370 km north of Lusaka.
The president of the National Union of Mining and Allied Workers, Mundia Sikufele said that the strike began on Thursday after the workers rejected a 12% pay rise that was offered by the management. They are currently paid 500,000 kwacha a month (US$105).
The secretary of the National Union of Mining and Allied Workers, Goodwell Kaluba said that the workers had agreed to start work from Monday as negotiations would be resumed with the management that day. He added that the workers wanted a 2 million kwacha rise across the board and were not interested in a percentage of the current salaries being offered.
The Chambishi smelter is located in an economic zone, where Zambian authorities are waiving taxes to attract investments and encourage value addition to raw copper. With copper prices soaring globally the smelter has being seeing pure profits over the last year.
The 150,000 tons-a-year smelter, is currently being used by the Kansanshi mine owned by First Quantum, the Chibuluma mine owned by Metorex (a South African company) and the Lumwana mine owned by Equinox Minerals to process their copper concentrates.Last month a $250 million expansion to double the copper output to 300,000 tons a year has been announced by the China Nonferrous Metals company.