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- Austral Gold (AGD) has settled a strike at its Guanaco and Amancaya mines in Chile
- The strike began early last month after negations broke down between the company and the two unions representing the site’s miners
- Since then, the unions have renegotiated a three-year collective labour agreement, increasing salary terms and including a one-time bonus of approximately US$13,000 (approximately A$18,526) for each employee
- With the agreement signed and the strike over, the company will resume operations at the sites next week
- Austral Gold shares are unchanged today, trading for 14 cents each
Austral Gold (AGD) has settled a strike at its Guanaco and Amancaya mines in Chile.
The strike began early last month after negations broke down between the company and two unions representing the site’s miners. Austral Gold and the unions were in the middle of organising a three-year collective labour agreement when the strike broke out.
Since then, the unions, which represent 254 employees at the site, have signed the three-year agreement.
During the strike, the unions renegotiated the agreement with Austral, increasing salary terms and including a one-time bonus of US$13,000 (approximately A$18,640) per employee. The total cost of the one-time bonuses is US$3.5 million (roughly A$5.02 million).
The site’s remaining union, which represents supervisors and management, has already agreed to the terms and, therefore, operations can ramp back up, starting next week.
Austral Gold’s CEO, Stabro Kasaneva is pleased negotiations have finished and normal operations can now recommence.
“This has been a difficult bargaining process and we settled on what we believe to be a fair agreement for the company and for the employees of [both unions]. We look forward to having the Guanaco and Amancaya mines restart operations next week,” he said.
Stabro went on to say he believes the strike will have no material impact on the company’s 2020 production. With that in mind, the company is still aiming to produce roughly 60,000 gold equivalent ounces over the course of the year.
Despite the strike, the company’s market share has fared well in recent months. Since the beginning of the year the company’s share price has risen more than 50 per cent.
Austral Gold shares are unchanged today, trading for 14 cents each at 11:02 am AEST.
