A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the of Masters of Arts Degree in Labour and Development, Economic Policy, Globalisation and Labour (Labour Policy and Globalisation). Johannesburg, 2016 / Zambia has been implementing economic liberalisation policies at the advice of the IMF and the World Bank, to reverse years of economic decline that began with the commodity crisis of the 1970s. As a strategy for economic growth, these included, the deregulation of foreign investment, removal of currency controls, trade liberalisation, decontrolling prices, cutting food subsidies, reduction of state control in running the economy and privatization of state run companies. The rapid implementation of these measures by the Zambian government has seen a change in employment trends in the mining industry from permanent employment to casualisation of labour.These measures have resulted into negative social and economicconsequences on the lives of the casualised mine workers such as job insecurity, poor health and safety standards, lack of protection and union representation, poor remuneration, lack of pension,and other forms of exploitation. Despite booms and busts in the copper price, employment levels have been drastically dropping especially among the permanent mine workers as a cost cutting measure. The role of the state in the running of the mines which Zambia has depended on since independence has diminished significantly and the state is increasingly succumbing to the dictates of the mining Trans-National Corporations (TNCs).The study which was conducted among casualised/contract rock ore drillers at Mopani Copper Mines Plc reaffirms arguments by previous researchers that economic liberalisation has not achieved the high expectations that Zambians wished for and that there is need for government and trade unions to protect the welfare and working conditions of these casualised mine workers who have become a new set of underclass. Through in-depth interviews, observations and documentary analysis, this research has brought to light the social and economic experiences of casualised/contract rock ore drillers at Mopani Copper Mines Plc and questions whether Zambian mine workers were better off when the mines were being run by the state than is currently the case under TNCs. / MT2017

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand Department of Sociology/ Global Labour University, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MA Labour and Development, Labour Policy &Globalization, 2015 / This study investigates the environmental costs of copper mining in a mining Township of Kankoyo in Mufulira, Zambia. It investigates the ways in which the mine workers in this community experience, assess and respond to the pervasive environmental degradation caused by mining operations. The study indicates that the people of Kankoyo have an implied understanding (physical experiences e.g. smoke, dust etc.) of the risks in their environment but lack explicit knowledge (long term effects). Second, the working class are now in an awkward position between participating in activism against the company that pollutes their environment and the need to keep their jobs. Third, experiences with a polluted environment have divided the Kankoyo between those who engage in community mobilisation (the unemployed) and those who don’t because they want to protect their jobs (the mine workers). As experiences take a gender dimension, women tend to suffer more due to the gender roles they play. Fourth, given their helplessness, the people of Kankoyo now plead for social services not in social justice terms but as a compensation for the pollution suffered. The core conclusion is that workers understand environmental threats but: (a) they have little awareness of the long-term effects and (b) they tend to minimise them. For these workers their economic security i.e. employment, is primary and they prioritise the immediate over the longer term, thus (c) they have not responded to this issue in an organised way, rather their unions tend to focus on traditional workplace/pay issues. In addition, state and environmental organisations’ responses are inadequate. Consequently, the community is forced to accept the negative environmental impacts on their lives and the environment. Therefore, the study makes the following arguments: (a) Mineral resource led development in Zambia has failed. Instead, it has led to devastating environmental and health impacts on the nearby communities; (b) that the provision of social services and housing to the mine workers, and revenue to the government only served to divert attention from the long term and ongoing environmental degradation that has taken place overtime. The slug dams, the accumulated dust heaps, leach plants and long term environmental degradation on the copperbelt attest to this; (c) that the corporate policy on housing only served the interests of the mining companies by stabilising the workforce without regard for the arising health impacts; and; (d) privatisation has increased the vulnerability of the working class to environmental costs of mining. In the end, from the shattered hopes of a good life ‘modernisation’ emerges in the words of one respondent a ‘development’ of ‘environmental suffering’, as Kankoyo remains a ‘bomb waiting to explode’. / XL2018

No description available.