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

III. Hours and Overtime
Across Zambia’s Copperbelt, miners in the Chinese-owned companies work under difficult
conditions for very long hours. At one extreme, some miners at Sino Metals described
working a 78-hour week, while others described working 365 days a year without a day off.
The standard Zambian work week, followed by other copper mining companies, is six days
of eight hours each day. 239 And those working the extended hours for the Chinese mining
companies often do not receive overtime, or receive far less than they are entitled by law.
Excessive Working Hours at Sino Metals, CCS
Workers in the Chinese copper processing operations, Sino Metals and Chambishi Copper
Smelter (CCS), often work far longer hours than the 48-hour week considered “normal”
under Zambian law. This work generally takes place in demanding conditions with harmful
chemicals, fumes, and dust. Most miners at Sino Metals and CCS work 12-hour shifts—in
contrast to the eight-hour shifts that are standard in every other copper mining and
processing operation in Zambia. Miners in certain departments at Sino Metals must work
365 days a year, or be docked pay for any absence. These conditions, particularly in the
mining context, are likely to put workers at greater risk of injury.
A high-level official for the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW)
contrasted the hours at the Chinese copper mining operations to other international
companies in Zambia:
Some workers in Chinese mines are forced to work 12 hours or more a day
for six days a week. Compare this to KCM [Konkola Copper Mines], where in
the open pit they have four shifts and elsewhere they have three. So people
work four days, with three days off; or five days, with two days off. And only
eight hour shifts. It’s the same at Mopani…. The Chinese want people to
work seven days a week, and longer hours. It’s one of the most common
complaints we receive, but the Chinese refuse to change. 240
At Sino Metals, miners in the crusher department and truck drivers—who travel from the
Chambishi plant to an area outside of Chingola where they load the low-grade copper that
239 Republic of Zambia, Chapter 276: The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act, No. 25 of 1982, as amended
by Act No. 13 of 1994, art. 3 (“The normal weekly hours of work for any employee shall not exceed forty-eight hours.”).
240 Human Rights Watch interview with NUMAW national union official, Kitwe, November 7, 2010.
75 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2011