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

the company processes—work 365 days a year. One driver told Human Rights Watch about
the difficulty of the long hours and the penalties that the company imposes for missing a
single day of work:
My biggest problem is that I’ve been working for 365 days without [a day] off….
I start every day at 6:30 a.m. and go until 18 hours Monday through Friday,
with a one-hour break. On Saturday, I knock off at 3:30 p.m.; on Sunday, at
noon.… It gets very tiring, I never see my family. We don’t understand why we
can’t have normal hours like the other companies on the Copperbelt.
If you’re absent for even one day, because you’re tired, because you have
other responsibilities to your family, they deduct from your basic pay. Far
more than what one day’s pay should be. If you’re absent for two days, your
pay goes way down. Even your housing allowance will go down. 241
Human Rights Watch interviewed four other miners employed by Sino Metals who work 365
days a year, and each of them said that, in combination with the low pay, the long hours
were the most pressing problem that they faced.
Even those at Sino Metals who do not work 365 days voiced complaints about their working
hours. Miners that work in production departments at Sino Metals, including fork-life operators,
those in leaching, and those in the Solvent Extraction and Electrowinning (SX/EW) plants,
routinely work five 12-hour shifts each week and a sixth 18-hour shift when they change from
day or night shift. Many of these individuals work with harmful chemicals, in extreme heat, or
with heavy machinery. A miner in the leach pad, where people work with acid, explained:
It’s difficult to handles these hours. We work 12 hours a day, five days, and
18 hours on the day of the change shift. It’s very tiring. During the week, we
work from 6 to 6, either day shift or night shift. And then yesterday we
worked from 6 p.m. until 12 [noon] today, an 18 hour shift; the group after
us will work from 12 today until 6 [a.m.] tomorrow…. And we never get a
break; they say it’s a continuous operation, so no break. They say the pipes
would break because of the copper solution if we took a break. It’s very
tough. If we eat, we have to while we work, or have a friend cover for a few
minutes. There are times where you’re just so tired. And after transport to
and from work, it’s 14 hours at least. My life is only my work here.
241 Human Rights Watch interview with driver B at Sino Metals, Chambishi, July 17, 2011.
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