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

children covered. Workers at Chambishi Copper Smelter (CCS) are covered along with a
spouse and, since 2011, one child. Miners from Sino Metals can have two children
covered, up from one in 2010. One miner at CCS told Human Rights Watch,
Another big problem is medical [coverage]. Most companies cover all
children, but in our case, it was only last year that they covered the spouse
and this year they added one child. We said that it’s not enough, how can
we pick one child to receive care? 149
As in other areas, like pay, hours, and safety standards, the Chinese companies have
made improvements, extending coverage to dependents. However, as in these same other
facets, the progress is gradual and leaves them well behind other multinational mining
companies in the country.
Company Safety Officers without Authority
Zambian law provides two lines of defense against abusive safety practices: safety officers
employed by the mining companies themselves and government safety inspectors in the
Mines Safety Department. The latter, discussed in more detail below, are largely ineffective
due to a combination of underfunding, understaffing, and corruption. This puts pressure
on the company safety officers to ensure that safety regulations are followed.
The ILO conventions make mine safety a priority. ILO Convention No. 176 gives workers the
rights to “request and obtain, where there is cause for concern on safety and health
grounds, inspections and investigations to be conducted by the employer and the
competent authority” and “remove themselves from any location at the mine when
circumstances arise which appear, with reasonable justification, to pose a serious danger
to their safety or health.” 150 Zambia, as a party to the convention, is obligated to “take all
necessary measures, including the provision of appropriate penalties and corrective
measures, to ensure the effective enforcement” of these provisions.” 151
Workers and union officials with whom Human Rights Watch spoke repeatedly voiced,
however, that across the Chinese copper mining operations, these safety officers have almost
no authority to protect workers. A national union official at NUMAW told Human Rights Watch:
149 Human Rights Watch interview with smelter operator B at CCS, Kitwe, July 16, 2011.
150 ILO Convention No. 176, art. 13.
151 Ibid., art. 16.
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