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

underground mining has more than doubled its lowest pay range since initiating full-scale
operations in 2004. However, inflation in Zambia has also increased by between 8 and 18
percent every year since 2004, which means the rising salaries have led to little real
increase. 54 Moreover, the competitors of the Chinese companies have increased their own
salaries at the same or even greater rate, meaning that the relative gap in pay has actually
widened over this period. (For a comparison of wages at different copper mining
companies in Zambia as of September 2011, see Annex IV.)
Exporting Abuses?: Similar Labor Problems in China’s Mining Industry
The closest corollary to Zambia’s copper industry in China is the country’s massive coal
mining sector. Its problems provide telling indicators of the challenges faced by workers in
the foreign mining operations of Chinese parastatals. China’s coal miners constitute China’s
poorest and most marginalized social groups: migrant workers from the rural countryside and
laid-off former employees of restructured or closed down state firms. 55 Safety risks including
fires, floods, and gas explosions have plagued Chinese coal mines for decades and claim the
lives of thousands of Chinese workers every year. 56 Those deaths are linked to what Chinese
labor rights activists have described as the “reckless disregard for miners’ lives” exercised by
state-owned mine operators in their pursuit of greater production and higher profits. 57 A 2008
report uncovered abuses and safety risks in Chinese coal mines including the denial of
mandatory safety equipment such as respirators, the manipulation or sabotage of safety
equipment such as toxic gas meters to ensure uninterrupted production, and threats of
dismissal or fines against workers who protest safety shortcomings. 58
Those problems appear to persist. An August 2011 state media report on coal mine safety
linked the sector’s safety risks and resulting high death tolls on “mine bosses [who] were
frequently forcing workers to boost mining, defying safety rules ordered by the
government.” 59 Official data from China’s State Administration of Coal Mine Safety Data
indicates that in 2010 coal mine accidents claimed the lives of 2,433 Chinese miners, a
decline from 2,631 deaths in 2009. 60 That reduction is due to unspecified “headway in coal
54 International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database: Zambia, Inflation, average consumer prices, April 2010,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/weodata/index.aspx.
55 China Labour Bulletin, “Bone and Blood: The Price of Coal in China,” CLB Research Report No. 6, March 17, 2008, p. 17,
http://www.clb.org.hk/en/files/File/bone_and_blood.pdf (accessed August 31, 2011).
56 “Two coal mine disasters kill 3, trap 40,” Xinhua News Agency, July 3, 2011.
57 China Labour Bulletin, “Bone and Blood,” p. 18.
58 Ibid.
59 “Two coal mine disasters kill 3, trap 40,” Xinhua News Agency, July 3, 2011.
60 Ibid.
25 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2011