â€œYou'll Be Fired if You Refuseâ€ - Human Rights Watch

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Reward managers and safety inspectors who correctly identify health and safety hazards, and punish those who work recklessly. • Ensure there are sufficient company safety officers, first aid kits, and other safety staffing and equipment. Take steps to include Chinese managers and Zambian workers together in daily safety talks, as well as periodic safety trainings. • Ensure adequate provision of potable drinking water at the worksite. To the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of China’s State Council • Establish an ombudsman in Chinese embassies where there are state-owned enterprises employing local workforces, allowing local employees in these companies to bring complaints of labor abuses. Investigate these complaints and, where relevant, take appropriate action against companies and management who oversee serious or frequent labor rights abuses. • Add a provision to SASAC’s commendable “Guidelines to the State-owned Enterprises” to ensure respect for local labor unions, and in particular workers’ right to establish and join the union of their choice and the right of union representatives to operate freely and without prejudice. 9 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2011
Methodology This report is based on three Human Rights Watch research missions conducted in November 2010 and July 2011 in Zambia’s copper-mining towns of Chambishi, Luanshya, Kitwe, Chingola, Solwezi, Mufulira, Kalulushi, and Ndola, as well as in the capital, Lusaka. With China’s burgeoning investment in Africa, Human Rights Watch undertook this work to assess what the impact was in human rights terms for those directly employed by Chinese companies. The goal of this report is therefore not to assess or criticize the nebulous concept of “China in Africa,” but to look strictly at labor practices in specific Chinese government-owned companies. Zambia, a country where Chinese parastatals have been intensively engaged in mining and employing a local workforce for almost a decade, provides a useful starting point. The findings presented in this report are limited to Zambia’s copper industry. This report draws from interviews with 143 miners, including 95 from the four Chinese copper operations and 48 from non-Chinese copper mining operations. Human Rights Watch also spoke with management representatives from the Chinese-run mines; officials from the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) and the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW); officials in Zambia’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security and Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, including the Mines Safety Department; police officials; medical professionals at the Sino-Zam Friendship Hospital that serves miners from the Chinese copper operations in Chambishi; the Zambian Human Rights Commission; representatives of national and international aid organizations; journalists; and foreign diplomats. The field research was supplemented by a review of academic publications and nongovernmental organization reports on China’s role in Africa, particularly in Zambia, and on Zambia’s copper industry, as well as meetings with experts on China’s engagement in Africa. Most of the copper miners were interviewed individually, though a few were interviewed in small groups based on their request. Interviews were conducted away from the mining sites in order to protect the workers from reprisals by management. The interviews were conducted primarily in English, though in a few cases were conducted in a local language and translated into English by an interpreter. Human Rights Watch has withheld names and identifying information to protect the miners from reprisal. Many expressed serious concern of being fired if management identified “YOU’LL BE FIRED IF YOU REFUSE” 10
Page 1 and 2: Zambia “You’ll Be Fired if You
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2011 Human Rights Watc
Page 5 and 6: Company Safety Officers without Aut
Page 8 and 9: Summary Over the past decade, China
Page 10 and 11: Chinese-run Copper Mining Companies
Page 12 and 13: uling in MUZ’s favor on the estab
Page 14 and 15: Recommendations To the Government o
Page 18 and 19: them as having spoken to Human Righ
Page 20 and 21: I. Background China’s role in Afr
Page 22 and 23: [The Chinese government] supports c
Page 24 and 25: History of Zambia’s Copper Indust
Page 26 and 27: Copper prices rose steadily from 20
Page 28 and 29: for CNMC in 2003—13 years after t
Page 30 and 31: policeman. Although the police inve
Page 32 and 33: underground mining has more than do
Page 34 and 35: After Mwanawasa died in August 2008
Page 36 and 37: quickly requested that the company
Page 38 and 39: of us in planning has our own compu
Page 40 and 41: Economic, Social, and Cultural Righ
Page 42 and 43: problems. In some areas, they shoul
Page 44 and 45: A national-level official at the Mi
Page 46 and 47: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Page 48 and 49: Miners told Human Rights Watch that
Page 50 and 51: While Sino Metals appears to be the
Page 52 and 53: Casual Workers at Sino Metals: No P
Page 54 and 55: speak further, refuted that anyone
Page 56 and 57: Godwin Beene, permanent secretary i
Page 58 and 59: They have a safety officer in place
Page 60 and 61: frequent, that two to three a week
Page 62 and 63: empowered to refuse to continue wor
Page 64 and 65: injured in a 2009 accident, contras
Page 66 and 67:
unsafe, don’t do it.’ If the mi
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Best Safety Practices in Zambia’s
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Deliberate Failure to Report Accide
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50,000, 100,000 Kwacha to not repor
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Problem of Subcontractors at Konkol
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are also corruption issues, a serio
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Kateka also stressed that the under
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Physical Abuse by Chinese Superviso
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III. Hours and Overtime Across Zamb
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Overtime is supposed to be four hou
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“Let me tell you, for people who
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almost never paid, even when they w
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Even when it is not an emergency si
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IV. Anti-Union Activities If you do
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Sino Metals still does not allow us
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that once such a committee is estab
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Intimidating Union Representatives
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A union representative at Sino Meta
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exercising or for the anticipated e
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V. Conclusion This report seeks to
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 350 Fifth Avenue
Page 108 and 109:
hour shifts, though generally only
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收件人 : 人权观察非
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acknowledged by various parties. In
Page 114 and 115:
the wearing of PPE (including those
Page 116 and 117:
common practice in the mining indus
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egistering with the company. Howeve
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Annex II: Copper Price, 2001-2011 1
Page 122 and 123:
2009 Financial Summary for the MSD
Page 124 and 125:
Annex IV: Wages in Chinese and Othe
Page 126 and 127:
Prior to 2008, the differences in s
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Annex V: Salary Breakdown at Sino M
Page 130:
H UMAN R I G H TS WATCH 350 Fifth A
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â€œYou'll Be Fired if You Refuseâ€ - Human Rights Watch

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â€œYou'll Be Fired if You Refuseâ€ - Human Rights Watch