Human Rights Watch Responds
In November 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) publisheda reportthat examined labor abuses inZambia’s Chinese state-owned copper mines. Our report was based on 143 interviews with Zambiancopper miners, as well as interviews with union representatives, medical professionals, governmentofficials, business representatives, and academics. We also made extensive use of official documents andnational laws. The report showed that while China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation (CNMC) had brought impressive investment that spurred needed job growth, serious labor abuses marked CNMC’soperations. The report also demonstrated that while labor abuses were not unique to CNMC’s mines, theCNMC-run companies generally had a worse record than their competitors in their failure to honor Zambian and international law regarding worker safety, hours at work, and freedom of association.The report’s findings are similar to those of the 2009 report from the African Labour Research Network (ALRN), a group of African trade union-linked researchers. ALRN found “common trends” in Chinese-owned companies across Africa, including “hostile attitudes … towards trade unions, violations of workers’ rights … and unfair labour practices.”
Regarding Zambia, ALRN said that workers fromCNMC-run NCFA felt “Chinese companies paid lip service to occupational health and safety issues.”
Two Hong Kong-based academics, Barry Sautman and Hairong Yan, published a critique of HRW’sreport in
Pambazuka.
Our response to this critique follows.
Safety
In our interviews, CNMC’s miners repeatedly described safety being treated as secondary, with preventable accidents and health consequences as a result.The Sautman-Yan critique of our safety findings is based in part on a misstatement of our methodology.They state, "Those interviewed by HRW included some 95 who had worked only at a CNMC firm and 48who had also worked elsewhere,” before arguing: “Miners who formerly worked at other mines, may notnecessarily make sound comparisons, as observations of safety practices experienced by a worker atKCM [Indian-owned Konkola Copper Mines] in 2008 and then at NFCA in 2011 do not tell us aboutsafety practices at NFCA in 2008 or KCM in 2011."
Our report’s methodologystates: "This report draws from interviews with 143 miners, including 95 fromthe four Chinese copper operations and 48 from non-Chinese copper mining operations." In 2010 and2011, HRW conducted research throughout the Copperbelt. Forty-eight miners were interviewed whowere working at that time for other multinational firms. The 95 miners interviewed from CNMC didinclude a substantial percentage who had worked at KCM or Swiss/Canadian-run Mopani Copper Minesin 2008, and these miners did compare their experiences – universally saying their previous employershad better safety practices than the CNMC-run company. However, our work also compared theresponses of miners still working at other multinationals to those working at CNMC-run mines.Discussed in greater detail in the report, CNMC’s miners described greater safety problems than miners at
other multinationals. These differences exist in core areas of mine safety, and CNMC’s substandard performance often violates Zambian and international law. For example,
•
CNMC’s miners complained almost unanimously about the companies' failure to replacedamaged personal protective equipment (PPE) before the end of a set timeframe (with theexception of China Luanshya Mine, as the report states). Miners from other multinationals saidthey received replacements without difficulty when PPE was damaged.
•
CNMC’s miners routinely described an environment in which their jobs were threatened if theydid not continue working in areas they reasonably perceived to be unsafe. Miners also said safetyofficers had little to no authority to stop work in unsafe areas. At other companies, miners hadmore positive responses about safety officers' authority and gave examples when they hadstopped work and even sanctioned managers who pushed workers to continue in unsafe areas.
•
No miner interviewed from another multinational had accepted or been offered, or knew anyonewho accepted or been offered, a bribe for not reporting an accident to the government’s MinesSafety Department. At NFCA alone, HRW documented six such cases. Other CNMC minersdescribed receiving threats to not report accidents.
Fatalities
Sautman and Yan criticize our methodology’s qualitative, interview-driven approach and state that “[t]hesingle most important measure of whether a mining company is deficient in safety compared to other firms is whether (other things being equal) that firm accounts for a large disproportion of fatalities.”
The statistics, however, support HRW’s qualitative findings. Sautman and Yan claim: “In 2010-2011,there are about 55,000 workers in Zambia’s foreign-owned mines, of whom 10.5 percent, or 5,850, work for CNMC’s two mining companies. CNMC-firm fatalities in Zambia - 11.5 percent of the country’s totalfrom 2001 to late 2011 - are not a very disproportionate number, which contradicts the claim that CNMCmines’ safety conditions are markedly worse....”
In fact, a closer examination of the fatality statistics does show CNMC’s mines to be markedly worse.The Sautman-Yan statement contains two errors that lead to their flawed conclusion:
1)
Sautman and Yan use CNMC’s
2011
percentage of Zambia’s copper mining workforce
incomparison with 2001-2011 fatality statistics
– despite CNMC’s growth over that period. SinoMetals, which employs around 400 miners, became operational in September 2006.
Moreover, Luanshya Mine was sold to CNMC in 2009.
Between
2001 and 2009, Luanshya wasowned by other foreign multinationals
Sautman and Yan therefore skewed the fatality comparison by using CNMC’s 2011 workforce.From 2001-2008, CNMC did not employ 5,850 miners. It essentially had one mining company, NFCA, with a workforce between 2,000 and 2,500.
Zambia’s total mining population during that
period varied between 35,000 and 48,000.
That would indicate an average CNMC workforce percentage of around 5.5 percent for 2001-2008.
For 2001-2011, a more accurate estimate of CNMC’s workforce among Zambia’s foreign-owned mines would be 6.9 percent.
2)
In counting fatalities, Sautman and Yan omit the biggest catastrophe in Zambia’s copper industryfrom the last decade: the BGRIMM plant explosion in 2005, which killed 46 Zambians.
As theyrecognize, NFCA owned a 40 percent interest in the plant. While NFCA did not directly manageit, the BGRIMM facilities were on NFCA’s Chambishi mine site.
BGRIMM, another Chinesestate-owned enterprise, owned the other 60 percent.
Sautman and Yan defend their decision toomit these fatalities by saying the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) does not attribute themto NFCA. While even that is questionable, MUZ’s categorizing would not suggest the BGRIMMdeaths are not attributable to Chinese state-owned companies operating in Zambia’s copper industry. Thus, whereas they claim 11.5 percent (25 of 217) of fatalities have occurred in CNMC-run operations, the appropriate figure is instead:
Between 2001 and 2011, 27.0 percent (71 of 263) of industry fatalities occurred in Chinese state-owned firms.
Correcting these two errors, the result is that with 6.9 percent of the 2001-2011 workforce, Chinese-run operations are responsible for 27 percent of fatalities including BGRIMM, and 11.5 percent of fatalities not including BGRIMM.
Moreover, Sautman and Yan imply that while there may have been problems during CNMC’s first years,these have been largely resolved.
The statistics from 2009-2011 show that CNMC’s mines areresponsible for 22.9 percent (11 of 48) of fatalities, despite having 10.5 percent of the workforce.
The qualitative and quantitative evidence therefore indicates that CNMC’s companies have greater safety problems than other foreign-owned firms – though that does not imply that other multinationals do notlikewise breach labor law. HRW’s report details the main labor complaints we received from miners atother companies, including the serious problem of subcontracted work at KCM.
Anti-Union Activity
HRW documentedunion busting by Sino Metals and CCS to keep out MUZ. The report is clear that
NFCA and CLM have both unions present. Sautman and Yan skirt the issue of anti-union activity instating, “The reason why MUZ is recognized by NFCA and CLM, but not by the two CNMC processingfirms needs more investigation and HRW should have left it at that.”
In HRW’s report, workers at CCS and Sino Metals described threats with being fired if they filed papersto establish a MUZ branch. MUZ's president also expressed the problem’s severity to Zambia's
Post
:"Munyenyembe stated that … Chambishi Copper Smelter and Sino Metals had even defied court judgments passed in MUZ's favour to have the said workers unionised."
no other company in Zambia’s copper industry has blocked theestablishment of a union branch office like this.
HRW’s findings were presented to CNMC. In response, CCS wrote: “We have discussed this with
NUMAW leaders who are of the opinion that for a company like [CCS], where there are less than 1,000