CARACAS, Mar 18: A six-day strike at Venezuela's soon-to-be-privatized state aluminum complex appeared near an end on Tuesday following an agreement on productivity bonuses.About 70 per cent of the complex's 9,000 workers had walked out last week over non-payment of salary increases and bonuses. "We're ending the strike following an agreement with the company to pay workers on March 31 a productivity bonus of 500,000 bolivars ($956)", Union leader Jose Luis Morocoima said.
He said the stoppage would only formally end once the agreement was signed by all parties. The signing was expected later in the evening with workers resuming work at the night shift, starting 22:30 local (0230 GMT on Wednesday).
Morocoima, who is president of the Aluminum Workers Union, said the agreement included a company's pledge to start talks within the next 60 days on a new wage structure common to all four companies in the state-run aluminum complex.
News of the expected end of the strike came a few hours after theannouncement that two international consortia had qualified to bid on March 25 for a 70 percent stake in the complex, located in Ciudad Guayana, in southeastern Bolivar state.
The first qualified consortium is composed of Britain's Billiton Plc France's Pechiney SA and Century Aluminum Co of the United States, with two Venezuelan companies, Sural and Alentuy.
The second comprises US Reynolds Metals Corp and Norway's industrial conglomerate Norsk Hydro ASA. During the stoppage, production at the 640,000 tonnes per year capacity complex -- equivalent to about four percent of world aluminum output -- was maintained by a skeleton staff.
Union leaders had said they were not using the strike to derail the privatisation yet industry analysts said it could not have come at a worst time.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
