Union support slips for Peru mining strike

By Jean Luis Arce and Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) - Union support sank for Peru's nationwide mining strike on Thursday, while workers from other mines said the walkout would go on until Congress passed a bill to give them a bigger slice of corporate profits.

Since the strike started on Monday, global copper prices have risen to record highs on worries it would crimp supplies from the world's No. 2 supplier.

The walkout is the latest sign that President Alan Garcia faces growing calls to spread the wealth from a six-year economic boom to workers and the poor, or risk losing support for his free-market policies at a time when left-wing parties are eyeing elections in 2011.

"The strike is clearly weakening," Peru's Labor Minister, Mario Pasco, told Reuters. He said only about 10 percent of all mine workers in Peru had downed tools, but that production was affected by a smaller percentage.

Unions at three mines and a smelter said they were returning to work or canceling plans to join the strike.

Laborers went back to work at the Ilo smelter of Southern Copper, Peru's biggest producer, though the strike continued at its Cuajone mine, where the company has said output has been mostly unaffected.

The strike was lifted at iron ore miner Shougang Hierro Peru, the company and the union said.

Workers at Freeport-McMoRan's Cerro Verde copper pit, Peru's third biggest, scrapped plans to join the national strike, but the union said it might hold its own walkout next week to force the company to give workers better benefits.