Brazil mining giant says strike in NW Mozambique mine "illegal"

The Brazilian mining company Vale on Thursday has described the strike by its workers which erupted on Tuesday, at Moatize in the northwestern Mozambican province of Tete, as "illegal."

The workers decided to go on strike when employees at Vale's open-cast coal mine at Moatize, realized that Vale would no longer pay them the part of their wages known as the Variable Remuneration (RV).

The industrial action also is due to Vale's decision to cut its Mozambican work force. The RV in question refers to 2015.

Vale argues that "this is a bonus, rather than part of the wages."

A press release from the company says that the RV is an additional payment which Vale grants to its workers throughout the world as a premium resulting from positive and extraordinary results attained by the company.

This remuneration is defined based on the profits generated and the performance of the workers during the year. The release says the decision was taken that no RV for 2015 would be paid to any Vale workers, anywhere in its global operations, because the company did not achieve the minimum financial results required to trigger the payment.

The release blames this "on the falling prices of the minerals produced by Vale, including coal".

However, the Moatize strikers say they were taken by surprise by the Tuesday announcement that the RV would not be paid.

Vale was the first international mining company to be involved in the coal project in Mozambique. Enditem