Codelco and Radomiro Tomic miners will reach an agreement to allay fears of strike

Workers at the Radomiro Tomic mine owned by Chile's state-owned copper giant Codelco accepted the company's new contract on Wednesday to ease fears of a possible strike. The union said in a statement that the contract proposal had been approved, adding that there were a large number of votes in support of the strike, but that it had not yet reached the absolute majority needed. In the union vote, 263 supported the strike action and 258 supported the contract proposal. The rest of the 670 votes were not cast, which means that the support rate for the strike did not meet the requirement of 50% plus 1 vote. "taking into account the failure to meet the requirement of an absolute majority to make the strike effective, the latest proposal of the employer has been accepted," the union said in a statement. "