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

Recommendations
To the Government of Zambia
• Ensure that the Mines Safety Department, in which only 13 of 28 inspector positions
are currently filled because of a hiring freeze, has sufficient staff to effectively fulfill
its mandate to monitor safety and health conditions in the mining industry.
• Seek to improve the staffing and equipment of the Mines Safety Department so
that it can better carry out its monitoring role. In particular, the Mines Safety
Department should be able to investigate accidents and perform other duties
without requiring financial and material assistance from the copper mining
companies it is tasked to monitor.
• Increase the fines that the Mines Safety Department can impose against mining
operations that violate safety regulations or labor laws to ensure they have a
deterrent effect.
• Direct the police to investigate and prosecute as appropriate mining company
officials who use threats and other forms of intimidation to force miners to work in
areas they reasonably consider unsafe.
To the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development, including the Mines
Safety Department
• Ensure that safety inspectors perform proactive, unscheduled inspections—rather
than respond only to reported accidents—to enforce safety regulations and better
prevent future accidents.
• Liaise better with company safety officers and miners, and introduce measures that
will facilitate efforts to report accidents anonymously, without threat of reprisals
from management. Ensure stiff penalties against any company that punishes
workers for reporting safety violations.
• Alert and assist local police when miners or safety officers inform inspectors of
cases in which management forces miners to work in unsafe areas or commit
physical abuse against them.
• Ensure that companies promptly replace personal protective equipment when
damaged during the normal course of work, without any cost to the employee.
7 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2011