Debate: Critiquing the critique on China in Zambia
In November 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report that examined labour abuses in the Chinese state-owned copper mines in Zambia. Our report was based on 143 interviews with miners in Zambia's copper mining industry, as well as interviews with union representatives, medical professionals, government officials, police officials, business representatives, and academics. We also made extensive use of secondary materials, official documents, and national laws. The report showed that while China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation (CNMC) had brought impressive investment that spurred needed job growth, serious labour abuses marked the CNMC-run operations. The report also demonstrated that while labour abuses were not unique to the CNMC-run mines - miners at other foreign-owned companies likewise raised complaints discussed in the report - the CNMC-run companies generally had a worse record than their multinational competitors in their failure to honour 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. While noting differing labour conditions in Chinese-owned companies across African countries and industries, ALRN said, '[T]here are some common trends, such as tense labour relations, hostile attitudes by Chinese employers towards trade unions, violations of workers' rights, poor working conditions and unfair labour practices.'[1]
Regarding Zambia in particular, ALRN said, 'While most of [sic] Chinese companies could be said to have policy statements on occupational health and safety, the policies are not being implemented. A number of workers in Chinese companies interviewed at NCF Africa Mining and China Geo-Engineering Corporation felt that Chinese companies paid lip service to occupational health and safety issues.'[2] Our report provides greater detail about the precise nature of these problems.
Human Rights Watch welcomes any and all critiques of its work in the 90 countries in which we research human rights abuses. We appreciate the opportunity here to respond to a critique of our Zambia report by two Hong Kong-based academics, Barry Sautman and Hairong Yan, published in Pambazuka News. We believe their article makes claims that are not supported qualitatively or quantitatively. We stand by the findings in our report.
SAFETY
Poor safety practices were arguably the biggest labour concern raised in our interviews with CNMC's miners. Miners repeatedly described safety as 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 48 who had also worked elsewhere.' This leads to a focal point of their critique: 'Miners who formerly worked at other mines, may not necessarily make sound comparisons, as observations of safety practices experienced by a worker at KCM [Indian-owned Konkola Copper Mines] in 2008 and then at NFCA [CNMC-run Non-Ferrous Company Africa] in 2011 do not tell us about safety practices at NFCA in 2008 or KCM in 2011.'[3]
In fact, our report's methodology states: 'This report draws from interviews with 143 miners, including 95 from the four Chinese copper operations and 48 from non-Chinese copper mining operations.' In 2010 and 2011, we conducted research throughout the Copperbelt - both at CNMC-run companies and copper mining firms run by other multinationals. Forty-eight miners were interviewed who were working at that time for other multinational firms.
The 95 miners interviewed from CNMC did include a substantial percentage who had worked at KCM or Swiss/Canadian-run Mopani Copper Mines (Mopani) in 2008, and these miners did compare their experiences - universally saying that their previous companies had better safety practices than the CNMC-run company. However, our comparison does not rely solely on this information. It also compares the responses of miners who still work at other multinational firms to the responses of those working at CNMC-run mines. The comparison is not a worker at KCM in 2008 and at NFCA in 2011, but rather a worker at KCM in 2011 and a worker at NFCA the same year.
By interviewing miners from other foreign-owned firms, we examined the current safety practices throughout the industry as stated by the miners themselves. There were significant differences, discussed in greater detail in the report. For example,
- On personal protective equipment (PPE), miners at the Chinese-run companies complained almost unanimously about the companies' failure to replace damaged equipment before the end of a set timeframe (with the exception of China Luanshya Mine, as the report states). Miners from other multinationals said they could receive replacements without difficulty when PPE was damaged.
- On safety officers' authority underground, there were stark differences in the responses. Safety officers at the CNMC-run companies were consistently described as having little to no authority to stop work in unsafe areas. At the other companies, miners had more positive responses about safety officers' authority and gave examples in which they had stopped work and even sanctioned managers who tried to push workers to continue in areas with insufficient support.
- On pressure from bosses to continue working in areas that miners considered unsafe underground, there were significant differences of the same variety. Miners at the CNMC-run companies routinely described an environment in which their jobs were threatened if they did not continue working in areas they reasonably perceived to be unsafe.
- No miner interviewed from another multinational ever had accepted or been offered, or knew anyone in his work group who had accepted or been offered, a bribe for not reporting an accident to the Mines Safety Department. At NFCA alone, we documented six such cases. Other miners at NFCA and CCS described receiving threats to not report accidents.
Thus, there are a number of areas in which there were clear, consistent differences related to safety practices - with the CNMC-run companies performing the worst. These differences exist in core areas of mine safety, and the substandard performance by CNMC often violates Zambian and international law.
FATALITY STATISTICS
Sautman and Yan critique our methodology's qualitative, interview-driven approach and state that '[t]he single 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.'[4] The HRW report employed a qualitative methodology in part because it is extremely difficult to make reliable comparisons based on small samples of fatality statistics, particularly when unable to control for extraneous variables. Some underground mine shafts in Zambia are around 500-600 metres deep (e.g., CNMC's Luanshya Mine), some are around 1,000 metres (e.g., CNMC's NFCA), and several extend to 1,300 to 1,500 metres (e.g., Mopani's Mufulira and Mindola mines, and KCM's new deep mine).[5] The deeper the mining work, the more unstable the shaft - and the more likely the accident. Moreover, some underground mine shafts are relatively new, and generally built with more modern technology, while others are decades old. Finally, some fatalities may be caused by companies' bad safety practices, while others may occur entirely due to worker negligence. The inability to control for these extraneous variables makes fatality statistics a flawed way to compare safety practices between companies.
However, even accepting Sautman and Yan's argument, the statistics support - rather than contradict - HRW's qualitative findings. Sautman and Yan make this claim: 'In 2010-2011, there are about 55,000 workers in Zambia's foreign-owned mines, of whom 10.5 per cent, or 5,850, work for CNMC's two mining companies. CNMC-firm fatalities in Zambia - 11.5 per cent of the country's total from 2001 to late 2011 - are not a very disproportionate number, which contradicts the claim that CNMC mines' safety conditions are markedly worse....'[6]
In fact, a closer examination of the statistics as presented by Sautman and Yan indicates that the fatality statistics do show the CNMC mines to be markedly worse. The Sautman-Yan statement contains two errors that lead to their flawed conclusion:
Sautman and Yan use CNMC's 2011 percentage of the total copper mining workforce in their comparison with 2001 to 2011 fatality statistics, despite the CNMC operations' continuous growth. Sino Metals, which employs between 300 and 400 miners, became operational in September 2006.[7] Chambishi Copper Smelter (CCS), which employs around 900 workers, became operational in 2009.[8]
Moreover, between 2001 and 2009, the Luanshya Mine - which is one of the two CNMC mining companies at present - was owned by other foreign multinationals, including an Indian company and a Swiss company.[9] Luanshya was sold to CNMC in 2009, and restarted operations at the end of that year.[10] Thus, in the way that Sautman and Yan establish their comparison, workers at Luanshya mine are counted as part of the CNMC workforce even before 2009, while the fatalities at Luanshya from 2001 to 2009 are counted in the other-than-CNMC total. This skews the CNMC fatality percentage for most of the years for which fatalities were counted.
From 2001-2008, CNMC therefore did not have two mining companies (and two processing plants) with a population of 5,850. It essentially had one mining company, NFCA, with a workforce between 2,000 and 2,500.[11] The total Zambian mining population during that period was slightly lower than at present - as other foreign firms have recently opened new mines - and varied between 35,000 and 48,000.[12] That would indicate an average CNMC workforce percentage of around 5.5 per cent for those eight years. For 2001 to 2011, a more accurate estimate of the CNMC workforce among Zambia's foreign-owned mines would be 6.9 per cent.
In counting fatalities, Sautman and Yan acknowledge omitting the biggest catastrophe in the Zambian copper industry from the last decade: the BGRIMM dynamite plant explosion in 2005, which killed at least 46 Zambians.[13] As recognized by Sautman and Yan, NFCA owned a 40 per cent interest in the plant. While NFCA did not directly manage it, the BGRIMM facilities were on the NFCA-run Chambishi mine site (victims' graves are now just outside the NFCA gate).[14] The other 60 per cent of BGRIMM Zambia was owned by BGRIMM, another Chinese state-owned enterprise.[15] Sautman and Yan defend their decision to omit these statistics by saying the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) does not attribute them to NFCA. While even that is questionable, given NFCA's joint ownership and control of the premises, MUZ's categorizing would certainly not suggest the BGRIMM deaths are not attributable to Chinese state-owned companies operating in Zambia's copper industry. Thus, whereas Sautman and Yan state that 11.5 per cent (25 of 217) of fatalities have occurred in CNMC-run operations, the appropriate figure is instead: between 2001 and 2011, 27.0 pe rcent (71 of 263) of industry fatalities have occurred in Chinese state-owned firms.
Correcting these two errors, the result is that with a 2001-2011 average of 6.9 per cent of the workforce, Chinese-run copper operations have been responsible for 27 per cent of fatalities if BGRIMM is included, and 11.5 per cent of fatalities even if BGRIMM is not included.
Moreover, Sautman and Yan imply, based on an interview with a Mines Safety Department official, that while there may have been problems during CNMC's first years, these have been largely resolved. The statistics in Sautman and Yan's table show that from 2009-2011, CNMC-run mines have been responsible for 22.9 per cent (11 of 48) of fatalities, despite having only 10.5 per cent of the workforce.[16]
OTHER MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES
The Sautman-Yan critique places a strong emphasis on a statement by MUZ's new president, in which he said that other multinational companies likewise violate labour law. HRW's report does not dispute that, and indeed the report includes sections detailing the main labour complaints we received from miners at other companies - including the issue of subcontracted work at KCM, which is a serious problem.
However, the qualitative and quantitative evidence indicates that the CNMC-run companies have greater safety problems than other foreign-owned copper mines. The HRW report includes quotes from several national union leaders - including MUZ's officer in charge of safety - who state that the CNMC-run companies have been particularly problematic. Our in-depth interviews with miners currently working for the various multinationals showed the same. Even in the quote used by Sautman and Yan to critique our report, MUZ's president states, 'They (the Chinese-run companies) have their own problems like mistreating workers and not following labour laws'[17] - the core premise that our report elaborates on.
Moreover, the Sautman-Yan critique ignores Zambian media reports quoting government and union officials who agreed with HRW's findings.[18] In the Times of Zambia, the president of the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW) responded to a question about our report: '[NUMAW president Mundia Sikufele] said that the Human Rights Watch report revealing that Chinese run copper mining companies in Zambia routinely flout the country labour laws is correct"¦He said the report brought out issues which the union and other stakeholders raised in the previous government.' Sikufele is also quoted as referring to the report as 'authentic' and pushing the government to implement its recommendations.[19]
ANTI-UNION ACTIVITY
The HRW report details union busting by the two CNMC-run processing plants, Sino Metals and CCS, to keep out MUZ. The report is clear that NFCA and CLM have both unions present. The Sautman-Yan critique mostly skirts the issue of anti-union activity in stating, 'The reason why MUZ is recognized by NFCA and CLM, but not by the two CNMC processing firms needs more investigation and HRW should have left it at that.'[20] Human Rights Watch's work is based on in-depth investigations, not identifying potential problems and failing to look deeper.
In HRW's report, workers at CCS and Sino Metals are quoted as having been threatened with being fired if they filed papers to establish a MUZ branch. MUZ national officials are quoted describing their failed efforts to establish a branch office, including taking the companies to court and receiving a favourable order. MUZ's president, whom Sautman and Yan use as support in their critique of our safety section, expressed the problem's severity to Zambia's Post newspaper: 'Munyenyembe stated that MUZ had faced significant "roadblocks" in its quest to have the affected mineworkers unionised adding that firms such as Chinese-run Chambishi Copper Smelter and Sino Metals had even defied court judgments passed in MUZ's favour to have the said workers unionised.'[21] According to national union officials and miners across the industry, no other multinational company in Zambia's copper mining industry has blocked the establishment of a union branch office like this.
HRW's findings were presented to CNMC in a letter In response, one CNMC-run company, CCS, wrote: 'We have discussed this with NUMAW leaders who are of the opinion that that for a company like Chambishi Copper Smelter, where there are less than 1,000 workers, one union suffices.' It is unclear why CCS would consult with NUMAW, MUZ's competitor union, to determine whether MUZ's presence was warranted - rather than allow the miners themselves to decide.
HRW did document prejudicial acts against union representatives by almost every company across Zambia's copper mining industry. HRW's report detailed these violations of labour law both by CNMC-run companies and by other foreign-owned firms.
HOURS
Sautman and Yan critique the HRW report's discussion of hours by disregarding the report's nuance, and then argue the report lacks nuance. They say the 'actual story of hours worked by Zambian miners does not at all correspond to the impression HRW creates of Chinese work-'til-you-drop bosses in contrast to enlightened managers at Western-based firms.' In fact, we never state that most CNMC employees - or all CNMC companies - have abusive hours.
The report section that discusses hours focuses on the two CNMC-run processing plants. The report is clear that the two underground mining companies employ eight-hour shifts, six days a week, in accordance with Zambian law and industry standards. However, the fact that NFCA and CLM have lawful hours does not exonerate CNMC from the fact that its two processing companies do not. Miners in the main departments of Sino Metals work 72-hour work weeks (six days of 12 hours), while miners in another department described working 365 days without an off day. Based on interviews with national union officials and miners across the industry, no other company in the Zambian copper mining industry has a 72-hour work week.
CCS likewise operates on 12-hour shifts. As the report states, the problems are less severe than at Sino Metals, as CCS provides two days of rest for every four days of work. However, given the concentration of dust and noxious chemicals in the smelter, resulting in health consequences, CCS's 12-hour shift probably violates international labour law as well. Miners at CCS have made an 8-hour shift a priority for several years during collective bargaining, but the company has consistently refused.[22] Thus, our statement that 'several Chinese-run copper mining companies require miners to work brutally long hours', which Sautman and Yan criticize, is supported by the facts.
WAGES
The wage information provided in HRW's report comes directly from each company's 2011 collective bargaining agreement wage tables - they were obtained from either union representatives at the individual companies, or from the MUZ national office. Sautman and Yan state that their information on wages comes from interviews with CNMC officials ('CNMC Company officials have said NFCA's overall average basic pay is about half that at KCM while at CLM it is about 80 per cent of KCM's level"¦').[23]
Human Rights Watch believes that wage data in each company's wage table is probably more accurate than what CNMC's officials say in an interview. Those wage tables show, as detailed in the report's Annex, that at the time of our publication the CNMC-run processing operations - CCS and Sino Metals - generally paid one-third to one-sixth the salaries of their multinational competitors for similar work; and the CNMC-run underground mines paid about one-half to one-third what their competitors paid for underground work. As the report states, the Chinese-owned CLM paid more competitive wages than the Chinese-owned NFCA. The report also makes clear that CNMC-run companies have significantly increased their wages over the last five years, though Sautman and Yan ignore this in criticizing our findings and indeed cite a Zambian professor saying the same thing.
After our report's release, media reports indicate Sino Metals and NFCA both gave impressive pay increases during collective bargaining negotiations for 2012, drastically reducing the prior discrepancy.[24]
POLITICS
Sautman and Yan conclude by saying the report denotes a 'political agenda' from Human Rights Watch. As support, they state that the organization's work on mining in Africa has focused solely upon Zimbabwe and CNMC. That is inaccurate, as an on-line search of HRW's related work in Africa would indicate. In reality, the organization has consistently reported on abuses by Western companies and governments with the same vigour as for those from China and elsewhere in the world.
This information was readily accessible to Sautman and Yan, as a textbox in the Zambia report highlights other HRW reports on business and human rights. In Africa, this includes reports on the relationship between a murderous armed group in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a company in the UK-based mining conglomerate Anglo American seeking access to a gold-rich mining site[25]; Western oil companies' role in abuses in Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria[26]; labour abuses in [South Africa's wine industry[27]; and child gold mining in Mali, including the role of Western gold importers.[28] Outside of Africa, our work includes documenting abuses by Canadian-owned Barrick Gold at a gold mine in Papua New Guinea[29]; abuses by Philip Morris in Kazakhstan[30]; the role]role of Enron Corporation in rights violations in India;[31] American internet service providers' role in surveillance and censorship in China[32]; labour rights violations by Wal-Mart in the United States[33]; and labour rights violations by major European multinationals in the United States.[34]
Sautman and Yan go even further in a second version of the critique, stating that, 'While HRW criticizes the Chinese government per se, its reports on Western entities mostly focus on specific private companies or errant government officials.'[35] HRW's report on CNMC in Zambia certainly does not criticize the Chinese government as such, but rather the 'specific company' CNMC. Moreover, in July 2011, HRW released a report entitled 'Getting Away with Torture', in which the highest-level US officials from the Bush administration, including former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, were cited as individually and jointly responsible for torture. HRW called for criminal investigations against them, and called on foreign countries to where they might travel to exercise universal jurisdiction.[36] While perhaps the most high-profile of such reports, criticizing Western governments for human rights abuses is the norm, not an outlier.[37]
CONCLUSION
Sautman and Yan's critique makes broad-brush statements that distort the facts and ignore the nuance present in HRW's report. The report repeatedly notes that the CNMC-run companies have improved labour conditions since beginning operations in 2001. The report highlights CNMC's impressive investment, which has saved jobs at mines closed by other investors and created new jobs. None of this is acknowledged in their critique. Indeed, their critique goes far beyond what CNMC itself disagreed with us about in its detailed reply letter to HRW. While denying some abuses that HRW documented, CNMC welcomed the research and promised an in-depth investigation into the main findings. CNMC even acknowledged that NFCA's underground mining unit, JCHX, had 'resulted in NFCA being subject to repeated criticisms from Zambia government departments including the tax department, audit department, mining department and safety department.'
HRW's report sought to move beyond the zealous claims from both sides of the 'China-in-Africa' debate and evaluate, from the perspective of miners in a large Chinese state-owned company in Zambia, the adherence to labour rights norms. The report's conclusions are rooted in the belief expressed in every interview with CNMC's miners: with improved respect for labour rights, CNMC's role in Zambia would be extremely positive. But unfortunately, as our research shows, there remains much work to be done on that front - both by the CNMC-run companies and by the Zambian government's Mines Safety Department, which has failed to protect workers' rights adequately throughout the industry.
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Pambazuka - Debate: Critiquing the critique on China in Zambia
so much for Developing African infrastructure after bribing and stealing common man's money.
