SANTIAGO—Chile state copper company Codelco kept two divisions closed for a sixth day on Monday and suspended work at a third division amid another violent flare-up in a subcontractor strike that is denting output at the world's No. 1 world copper producer.
State-owned Codelco said it had temporarily suspended work at its Teniente division through Tuesday morning. It cited disruptions that had forced it to operate with skeleton staff as protesters prevented workers from beginning shifts.
A worker at Teniente was sent home after a metal bearing thrown at a bus early on Monday broke a window and injured his eye.
Codelco has kept its Andina and Salvador divisions closed since Wednesday when subcontractors, citing record-high copper prices, went on strike demanding a bigger share of windfall revenues and better working conditions.
No details on production losses were immediately available from the latest in a series of sometimes violent strikes.
"We have decided to suspend temporarily (two) shifts today and the morning shift on Tuesday" at Teniente, Codelco said on its Web site www.codelco.cl.
"This is unacceptable," said Codelco Chief Executive Jose Pablo Arellano. "People have to be able to go to work and carry out their tasks ... in peace. No one has the right to cowardly attack people who want to do their jobs and help Chile move forward."
Subcontractors from the Confederation of Copper Workers, which groups more than 30,000 workers at state-owned Codelco, began a new Codelco-wide strike last Wednesday.
The strike has buoyed copper prices, which hit an all-time high last week, then receded slightly. Traders on the London Metal Exchange said on Monday that the strike helped underpin prices for the red metal.
Workers scuffled with police last week, pelting buses with stones and erecting roadblocks. Codelco in turn lodged legal complaints accusing some subcontractors of holding its staff hostage.
Andina, situated about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of the Chilean capital Santiago, produced 218,000 tonnes of copper in 2007. Salvador lies 685 miles (1,100 km) north of Santiago and produced 64,000 tonnes of copper last year.
Teniente is Codelco's second biggest division, located 50 miles (80 km) south of Santiago. It produced 405,000 tonnes of copper last year.
Codelco's Norte and Ventanas divisions are running normally.
"If the violence continues as it is at Andina and Salvador, then the divisions will continue to halt their operations, because we are not going to expose our people (to danger)," Raimundo Espinoza, president of the powerful Federation of Copper Workers union which represents Codelco's permanent staff, told local radio.
The Confederation of Copper Workers, which represents subcontractors, demands that Codelco fulfill agreements reached in July 2007 that ended a long, sometimes violent, strike for improved benefits and pay -- and has vowed to continue striking until those demands are met.
Subcontracted workers want pay and benefits in line with those of Codelco's unionized employees who do the same jobs across its five divisions. Espinoza says there are 17,000 permanent Codelco mining staff.
They also want the company to absorb 5,000 subcontract workers into its full-time ranks.
Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, has annual output of about 1.7 million tonnes.
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