UPDATE:Chile Collahuasi Union President Open To Government Mediation

The 1,551-strong striking union at Chilean copper mine Dona Ines de Collahuasi is open to government mediation, union President Manuel Munoz said Thursday.

On Wednesday, the 13th day of the strike, Collahuasi sweetened its offer in the hopes of luring workers back to work and abandoning the strike.

The sole union at the mine will send representatives to Santiago, the nation's capital, to ask the government to step in and mediate the conflict, Munoz told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

"We want the central government to call the company to order. This is much more than just a conflict between private parties," Munoz said.

While the company says the union had declined to answer calls to resume talks, Munoz counters that no one has tried to reach out to him or other leaders.

"The regional governor who told reporters she would mediate simply hasn't called us," he said.

With the strike in its 14th day Thursday, the company says production is normal as result of a contingency plan.

Munoz, meanwhile, holds that the mine is operating at 20% of capacity with a few replacement workers.

He noted the company had stockpiled ore and copper for deliveries ahead of the strike, but that these stockpiles were likely dwindling.

Regarding what the company called its "last, final and definitive offer," Munoz called the sweetened deal "a bid to break up the labor movement."

The offer, which includes a net signing bonus of nearly $30,000 per worker, will be valid until Nov. 23, the company said.

Munoz called it "strange" how the company was able to come up with the money to finance this latest offer when it was offering smaller bonuses in earlier talks.

"But this is much more than just the bonus. It's about the internal relationship between the company and its workers," he said.

The union leader denied reports that the Collahuasi union was using the strike to draw attention to and strengthen the Mining Workers Federation to which it belongs.

"If we had wanted to make this debate political, you would have seen violence on the streets of Iquique," he said. The street marches the workers have held through the port city of Iquique in recent days have been very peaceful, he noted.

Collahuasi is one the biggest copper mines in the world and is owned by diversified mining companies Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN) and Anglo American PLC (AAUKY, AAL.LN), each with a 44% stake. A consortium led by Mitsui & Co. (MITSY, 8031.TO) holds the remaining 12%.

The mine is located 185 kilometers southeast of the port of Iquique, high in the Andes mountains at 4,400 meters above sea level, and produces about 500,000 metric tons of copper a year, or about 10% of Chile's annual output.

Chile is the world's leading copper producer, accounting for about 35% of global output.

-By Carolina Pica, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-715-8919; carolina.pica@dowjones.com

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