Workers vote to end strike at Mexico's Peñasquito mine

More than 2,000 unionized workers at Mexican miner Minera Peñasquito, a subsidiary of US-based Newmont, unanimously decided to end their strike at the company’s gold-silver mine in Zacatecas state after four months.

“The terms under which the strike is lifted include a salary increase of 8% … with retroactive payments from August 1, in addition to a payment equivalent to 152mn pesos [US$8.3mn] shared equally between each worker,” the union said in a bulletin.

In its latest offer the company had proposed a salary increase of 7.5% and the workers demanded the 8% finally achieved.

Minera Peñasquito later confirmed in a statement a "preliminary agreement" had been reached with the union to end the strike that began on June 7, and was ratified by the union's general assembly on October 5.

The company said this "will have to be formalized in a definitive agreement, which the parties will have to approve and sign, and then submit to the federal labor court for collective affairs for final approval.

"We hope that this process will conclude in the coming days, which will put an end to the strike and allow Peñasquito to resume its activities," it added.

Workers in the mining, metallurgical and steelworkers' union voted to go on strike after denouncing breaches of the collective agreement and the profit-sharing scheme (PTU). They also demanded an increase in their share of profits from 10% to 20%.

On August 8, Minera Peñasquito asked a federal labor court to analyze the merits of the union's claims, while the company refused to increase the 10% PTU share agreed in the collective agreement. The strike at the mine was costing the company US$3.7mn a day, it said in August.

The union reported that as a result of the “intense negotiations” mediated by the labor ministry, with the participation of secretary Marath Baruch, the union and the director of Newmont's South American regional office, C. Mark Rodgers, Peñasquito workers agreed to return to their posts. 

The profit-sharing payments for fiscal year 2023 will be 10%, in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement, “and only in the event that the company does not report profits, a guaranteed payment of two months salary will be made to each worker,” said the union, which asked for a payment equivalent to 2.3 months salary.

The union said that a working group was established with the participation of the ministry “to analyze all the issues that gave rise to the strike.”

In 2022, the Peñasquito mine produced 566,000oz of gold, 29.7Moz of silver, 171,000t of zinc and 66,000t of lead, according to mining chamber Camimex, making it the country’s largest producer of the four metals.