Canada’s Barrick Mining (TSX: ABX) has signed a new collective bargaining agreement with unions representing workers at its Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine in western Mali, a company spokesperson and a union official said on Sunday, easing the threat of a strike.
“We confirm that we have signed a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the LG unions,” the spokesperson said.
Bani Sacko, a union official at Barrick’s Loulo-Gounkoto complex, confirmed to Reuters on phone call that strike action has been called off.
“On Monday the 21st, after a meeting, an agreement was reached and the strike action has since been called off. Apparently, all the other strike actions have also been called off,” Sacko said.
The Loulo-Gounkoto unions had submitted a list of 15 demands, Sacko added.
The agreement was earlier reported by Bloomberg News, which cited Abdoulaye Coulibaly of Mali’s National Union of Malian Workers.
“The strike threat has been resolved,” Coulibaly said, according to the Bloomberg report. He added that the agreement involved workers at Food & Events Africa, Somilo SA and Gounkoto SA.
Earlier this month, unions representing workers at Somilo and Gounkoto said they would begin strike action at the end of September unless demands on overtime pay, reimbursement of mission expenses and implementation of labour agreements were met.
Separate strike notices were also submitted by Barrick’s catering and support staff contractor Food & Events Africa as well as workers in Mali’s mining regulator and other mining administration agencies.
Mali, one of Africa’s leading gold producers, resolved a dispute with Barrick in November last year over profit-sharing and control of the Loulo-Gounkoto gold mining complex after two years of negotiations.
Toronto-based Barrick temporarily suspended operations in January last year, after Mali’s military-led authorities arrested the miner’s employees and issued an arrest warrant for the company’s former CEO Mark Bristow for alleged financial crimes.
The Malian government tightened its grip on the mining sector under a 2023 mining code aimed at boosting state revenues from the country’s natural resources.
(Reporting by Sumedha Mukherjee and Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru and Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako; Editing by Christina Fincher)
