“You'll Be Fired if You Refuse” - Human Rights Watch

Chinese-run Copper Mining Companies
In 1997, after decades of control by Zambian state-owned enterprises, or “parastatals,” the
government sold the copper mines to private investors. Two decades of falling copper
prices and low capital investment had left the industry a shell of its lucrative past.
Copperbelt towns today look like 1960s models that have aged with difficulty and never
been updated, with buildings from that era’s boom times now shuttered or dilapidated and
tennis courts and cricket fields once provided and maintained by the Zambian parastatals
now overgrown with weeds.
Right after privatization, China entered the Zambian copper mining industry, along with
competitors from India, South Africa, Switzerland, and Canada. In 1998, China Non-Ferrous
Metals Mining Corporation (CNMC) purchased the copper mine in Chambishi for Non-Ferrous
China Africa (NFCA); some US$132 million later, the mine reopened for production in 2003
after being dormant for 13 years. CNMC is overseen by China’s State-owned Assets Supervision
and Administration Commission (SASAC), a body that controls state-owned enterprises under
the government’s State Council—the country’s highest executive authority in charge of the
state’s administration. CNMC therefore has direct links to the Beijing government.
Since 2003, CNMC has opened three mining operations in Zambia in addition to NFCA:
Sino Metals Leach Zambia (Sino Metals), a copper processing plant; Chambishi Copper
Smelter (CCS), a copper smelting plant; and China Luanshya Mine (CLM), an underground
and open-cast mining operation. The four employers currently provide around 6,000 jobs
and are undertaking substantial expansion, with several thousand more jobs expected to
be filled in the next few years. Mine shafts have been upgraded with modern equipment,
the smelter is deemed state-of the-art, and computers have replaced pencils in planning.
Labor Abuses
Miners in these companies who spoke to Human Rights Watch repeatedly expressed
gratitude to the Chinese investors for their jobs and the enormous investment being made.
Yet each measure of praise was invariably followed by a string of complaints about
working conditions. Copper production carries serious health and safety risks from mining
through processing and smelting. Underground copper mining is particularly dangerous,
with at least 15 recorded fatalities in Zambia every year since 2001. While accidents are not
unique to Chinese-run mines, nearly all the Zambian workers and union officials who
spoke to Human Rights Watch said the Chinese copper operations were the country’s worst
when it comes to health and safety.
3 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2011