Workers at the Pribbenow mine in northern Colombia, owned by U.S.-based Drummond, have signed a preliminary two-year contract and will end their strike soon, a union official told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We have a preliminary contract agreement," said Joaquin Romero, president of the Funtraenergetica labor organization which represents 3,500 Pribbenow miners.

"The strike will be lifted when the agreement is signed, probably later today," Romero said.

Three thousand workers of the coal mine situated in the municipalities of La Loma and Puerto de Ciénaga, located in the Colombian departments of Cesar and Magdalena respectively, began a work-stoppage at 5:50 PM on Wednesday, July 16, 2008. This is the second largest coal mine in Colombia and is run by the U.S.-based Drummond mining company. Drummond has also been granted a lease to extract natural gas deposits discovered in the same area and to operate the 55,000-acre El Descanso mine, in the municipalities of Becerril and Codazzi, considered the largest coal mine in the world.

By Raul Connolly

According to a July 15 statement by Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) spokesperson Patrick Craven, a meeting of southern African trade union representatives that day had issued a call for unions to place industrial bans on goods destined for Zimbabwe in solidarity with the struggle for democracy.

Informamos al movimiento sindical, organizaciones sociales, fuerzas políticas y opinión pública nacional e internacional que los 3.500 trabajadores de la transnacional minera del Carbón Drummond Ltd, afiliados a SINTRAMIENERGETICA, decretaron la hora cero, el día 16 de Julio de 2008 a las 5:50 pm., producto de la votación de la HUELGA en sus asambleas generales, paralizando totalmente la producción en la Mina y Puerto, ante la negativa de esta empresa a solucionar el modesto pliego de peticiones presentado por los trabajadores a través de su Organización sindical Sintramienergética – Funtraene