The strike at Barrick Gold’s Veladero mine in Argentina ended after a day of negotiations between the company and the AOMA union, which represents Veladero workers.

The union initiated an “unplanned work stoppage,” on May 28, Barrick announced early on May 29. Hours later, Barrick issued another press release declaring the end of the strike. The company has begun a formal dialogue process with union leadership.

Barrick said the brief stoppage will not affect the timeline for repairs to the heap leach valley that the San Juan provincial government requires before the mine can resume full operations after the cyanide leak in late March. The company still expects leaching activities to resume in the second half of June, pending approval from San Juan’s regulatory and judicial authorities.

The short-lived strike came just ten days after four law firms announced they are filing class-action lawsuits against Barrick for comments about Veladero that they say misled investors.

The firms that filed the class action lawsuits on behalf of investors claim Barrick made “misleading” statements concerning the most recent cyanide spill at Veladero in March. Barrick “made materially false and misleading statements regarding the company’s business, operational and compliance policies,” according to the most recent lawsuit filed by Pomerantz LLP on May 19 in the Southern District court of New York state.

The Argentinian mine has had three cyanide spills in 18 months. Most recently, there was a “rupture” in a pipe carrying gold-bearing solution on the leach pad on March 28. As a result, the government of San Juan restricted the addition of cyanide to the mine’s heap leach facility.

Two days after the spill, Barrick said in a release that “we do not anticipate a material impact to Veladero’s 2017 production guidance,” and kept it set at between 770,000 ounces and 830,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of US$840 per ounce to US$940 per ounce.

Then on April 24th the company cut its annual outlook for the mine in its first-quarter earnings release to an expected 630,000 to 730,000 ounces of gold, which included its reduced output take after selling 50 per cent of Veladero to China’s Shandong Gold Group. It also increased the all-in sustaining cost estimate to between US$890 per ounce and US$990 per ounce.

That day Barrick’s stock dropped 10.8 per cent to $22.91 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, its worst one-day performance in six months.

Barrick is also facing lawsuits from the National Minister of Environment of Argentina and from locals in provincial courts. Both cases want to see Veladero’s activities suspended or terminated.

Barrick is the world’s largest producer of gold by output, and Veladero is its third-largest producing mine.