UPDATE 1-Strike halts Bolivia silver mine, exports - union

* San Cristobal is Bolivia's top silver mine

* Union decides to continue indefinite strike
(Adds comments from union leader, background)

LA PAZ, March 30 (Reuters) - A week-old strike at Bolivia's
San Cristobal mine has totally paralyzed production and exports
of silver, zinc and lead, a union leader said on Wednesday.

San Cristobal is the world's third-largest producer of
silver and the sixth-largest producer of zinc, according to
Japan's Sumitomo Corp (8053.T), which owns the mine.

"There is neither production nor exports, because there's a
blockade as part of the strike. Nothing is entering or leaving
the mine," union leader Cesar Lugo told Reuters by telephone.

Lugo said workers decided at a meeting to continue their
strike, rejecting a request by mine managers that they call off
the protest before formal talks begin.

He said he had been told the mine had a "significant
quantity" of mineral concentrates stored on site, but that
"nothing is leaving for Chile (export ports) because of the
strike."

Mine managers said on Tuesday that talks had not yet
started to discuss the union's demands for improved working
conditions and the firing of several officials.
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San Cristobal produced some 620,000 kg of fine silver in
2009, official data shows, and its output accounts for about
half of the country's total mining exports.

Labor disputes are common in mineral-rich Bolivia, a
significant global exporter of zinc, silver, tin and lead.

A strike last year brought several mines to a halt for
almost three weeks, including San Cristobal and Coeur D'Alene's
(CDE.N) San Bartolome, the world's largest pure silver mine.
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(For a Factbox on Bolivia's largest mines, click on:
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(Reporting by Carlos Quiroga; Writing by Eduardo Garcia;
Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)