Freeport McMoRan’s Peru Copper Miners to Strike Over Wages

Freeport-McMoRaexfoliated vermiculite machinery costn Copper & Gold Inc.’s copper miners in Peru will go on strike today after wage talks collapsed, their third stoppage this month, while workers in Indonesia will resume negotiations, union officials said.

About 1,200 workers at Freeport’s Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde SAA unit, Peru’s third-largest copper producer, are scheduled to walk off their jobs at 8:30 a.m. New York time, union General Secretary Leoncio Amudio said. The Labor Ministry ruled the strike action was legal, which bars the company from hiring outside contractors, he said. “Talks have made little progress as the company isn’t even meeting half our demands,” Amudio said yesterday by telephone from Arequipa, 750 kilometers (466 miles) southeast of Lima. “This strike will probably last longer than...