By Alonso Soto
CHUQUICAMATA MINE, Chile, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Workers at Chile's Chuquicamata copper mine began voting on Monday on a wage offer from top world producer Codelco, and union leaders expect to avoid a strike at one of the world's biggest mines.
Despite some dissident voices in the rank and file, union leaders were confident workers would accept state-owned Codelco's [CODEL.UL] wage offer following a month of tense contract negotiations.
Threats of a strike at the mine complex, which produces around 4 percent of the world's copper output, rattled copper markets and boosted prices in Shanghai and London. [ID:nSGE5BR03Y]
Nearly 6,000 union workers at the mine will vote via a secret ballot on whether to accept the offer or strike. Results are expected at around 2000 local time (2300 GMT).
Workers, some in gray-colored uniforms and protective headgear, lined up to vote at Chuquicamata's old mine camp ringed by rocky, desert slopes in the dry Atacama desert in northern Chile.
"They will vote with their conscience and will accept this offer," Victor Galleguillos, head of one of the three unions negotiating jointly, told Radio Cooperativa.
At a meeting on Sunday to mull the offer, some workers yelled "strike, strike" to demand more benefits while others sat quietly as union leaders explained an offer largely unchanged from a previous one rejected last week. [ID:nN27132980]
Union leaders said the early wage offer was rejected by a minority of workers during a public gathering, but that a vote will likely avoid a stoppage that hurts workers pockets. [ID:nN22132572]
Codelco is one of the Chilean state's main earners, and the government has used billions of dollars in windfall copper savings to battle Chile's first recession in a decade amid the global financial crisis.
Rising copper prices, which have more than doubled this year, have emboldened mine workers across the globe to demand more benefits from mining companies.
A Codelco official told Reuters on Wednesday the company would be able to honor all its contract early next year even if workers at Chuquicamata strike, as bigger-than-expected output in 2009 gave the company a cushion. [ID:nN23160951]
Still, a strike would inflict production losses for Codelco, which is set to break years of dwindling output in 2009 thanks to an aggressive investment plan to upgrade older mines, like Chuquicamata. [ID:nN23247277] (Editing by Simon Gardner)