Allen17
05-05-2012, 03:21 PM
ALMATY, May 5 (Reuters) - Copper miners in Kazakhstan went on strike on Saturday, staying inside a mine owned by Kazakhmys to demand higher wages from their employer in a move likely to unnerve authorities in the Central Asian state just months after deadly oil town riots.
Some 80 miners at the Annensky mine in central Kazakhstan refused to return to the surface after a shift that began on Friday, a company official told Reuters by telephone, requesting anonymity.
Kazakhmys, the world's 11th-largest copper producer, which trades on the London Stock Exchange and is in the FTSE 100 index , said in a statement that work at the mine had been disrupted but that the miners had not made any official demands.
The company said it understood that the strikers were seeking a wage increase for workers carrying out basic tasks at the mine such as drilling.
Authorities in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic of 16.7 million people, are especially wary of labour unrest in single-industry towns after a months-long dispute by sacked oil workers last year erupted into the country's worst violence in decades.
MORE: http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFL5E8G50SV20120505
Looks like a small strike now, but in light of recent events....
Some 80 miners at the Annensky mine in central Kazakhstan refused to return to the surface after a shift that began on Friday, a company official told Reuters by telephone, requesting anonymity.
Kazakhmys, the world's 11th-largest copper producer, which trades on the London Stock Exchange and is in the FTSE 100 index , said in a statement that work at the mine had been disrupted but that the miners had not made any official demands.
The company said it understood that the strikers were seeking a wage increase for workers carrying out basic tasks at the mine such as drilling.
Authorities in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic of 16.7 million people, are especially wary of labour unrest in single-industry towns after a months-long dispute by sacked oil workers last year erupted into the country's worst violence in decades.
MORE: http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFL5E8G50SV20120505
Looks like a small strike now, but in light of recent events....