Fenoco president Peter Burrowes told Reuters that union workers would sit down in seven different locations next week to decide if the stoppage, which first began on July 23, should go to an arbitration committee.

That would put Fenoco workers back on the job as early as Thursday.

In order to lift the strike action, 51% of laborers must vote affirmative, the news service reports.

However, Sintraime union president Felix Herrera questioned the legality of Monday’s vote, telling Reuters that union members, not the company, were the only ones that could lift the strike action.

“First, I don't think there'll be 51 per cent that vote to lift the strike,” he reportedly said.

“Second, as the process is not legal, we would not be obligated to go the arbitration tribunal.”

Vice minister of mines Henry Medina said, according to Reuters, that the process would go according to Colombian law.

“What I understand is that the workers themselves will call it,” he told the news service.

“There are workers that don't want the strike. I know the company is promoting that [and] I understand that the company is doing everything by the law.”

Following a move by Le Jagua mine owner Prodeco, a court is expected to enter judgment on the legality of the strike Friday local time.

The strike first started over pay and working conditions, but as it has deepened over the weeks of the stoppage coal prices have begun to rise.

Parties in the talks have come to an impasse and both are calling the other inflexible.

Fenoco is calling for the movement of stuck trains on the track. The union is demanding the reinstatement of workers fired in a walkout organized in 2009, according to the report.

An official told Reuters the Andean nation was losing more than $1 million in royalties for every day the strike continued.

Fenoco, Colombia’s largest coal railroad, carries coal for US-based miner Drummond International, Glencore's Prodeco unit and a Goldman Sachs affiliate. To date, it has carried about 1.5 million tonnes of export coal from those complexes.

Glencore and Drummond have both reportedly declared some level of force majeure on their cargoes in the last two weeks.

Colombian coal buyers reportedly said that, should the strike extend through the end of the month, as much as 4 million tonnes could be taken from the country’s supply this year, tonnage that will not be able to be recovered.