Teck receives strike notice allowing Canada's largest copper mine to halt work on October 24
Key Facts
Teck Resources said it had received a strike notice allowing work to stop at Highland Valley Copper from October 24, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time. The company said the notice was submitted by United Steelworkers Local 7619 in a labor dispute at a site it describes as Canada's largest copper mine. Teck fully owns the mine, with a 100% stake, according to its operating overview. In its statement acknowledging receipt of the notice, it said "operations at Highland Valley Copper are continuing," while the notice sets the earliest permissible start of a strike. It added that it had contingency plans to maintain safety and environmental management during industrial action. The notice follows the expiry of the mine's collective agreement on September 30, 2026, according to the same statement.
The United Steelworkers union said the strike mandate was backed by 100% of the 944 members who voted. The union represents about 1,200 workers at Highland Valley Copper, according to its statement on the dispute. It said its proposals aimed to "address understaffing, improve wages and strengthen pensions," placing those issues at the center of its bargaining demands. In its account of the negotiations, the union said the company had submitted a revised financial offer. It added that Teck had withdrawn a demand for a concession from workers alongside the revised financial offer. But the offer remained below members' expectations, according to the union's assessment, which also said other demands for concessions remained in place.
On the operational front, the dispute follows an increase in the mine's copper output in 2025 and a further rise in the second quarter of 2026, according to Teck's disclosures. Annual production reached 127,100 tonnes in 2025, compared with 102,400 tonnes in 2024, according to the company's operating and financial performance report. In the second quarter of 2026, Highland Valley Copper produced 42,800 tonnes of copper, according to unaudited quarterly results. Teck said output in that period rose by 10,400 tonnes from the same quarter a year earlier. In its first-quarter operating overview, the company had set its full-year 2026 production guidance for the mine at between 115 and 135 thousand tonnes of copper.
Alongside the mine's current production, Teck is pursuing a project to extend its operating life, with capital investment estimated at between 2.1 and 2.4 billion Canadian dollars when it announced the decision to proceed. The plan aims to extend the mine's life from 2028 to 2046, according to the company's statement approving the extension. Teck estimated targeted average copper production over the extended mine life at 132,000 tonnes annually. It said the project preserves about 1,500 direct jobs associated with the site's operations. In a progress update included in its second-quarter 2026 report, the company said detailed engineering for the extension project was about 95% complete. The project places the current labor dispute in the context of an investment plan to extend the mine's operations and preserve the direct jobs associated with it over its targeted life.
At the company level, Teck's profit attributable to shareholders reached 854 million Canadian dollars in the second quarter of 2026, according to its unaudited results statement. That compares with profit attributable to shareholders of 206 million Canadian dollars in the same quarter of 2025, according to the quarterly comparison published by the company. Teck is scheduled to report its third-quarter 2026 financial results on Thursday, October 29, 2026, according to its results announcement notice. The company said the results would be released before the market opens, with a webcast to review them later that day. The webcast starts at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time, equivalent to 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, according to the results announcement schedule.