Post editorial condemns Chambishi violence

The editorial in The Post today condemns Zambian workers for the violent expression of their grievances at the Chambishi mine.

Well, I don't want to condone violence, but I think the editorial misses an opportunity to consider why labour relations have been so violent on the Copperbelt, a theme I considered at length yesterday.

The editorial notes, "The rights of workers, like all rights, are based on the nature of the human person and on her and his transcendent dignity. Among these rights are: a just wage; a working environment not harmful to the workers’ physical health or their moral integrity; social security, and their right to assemble and form associations. In this regard unions which enable workers improve their conditions should be valued and promoted by everybody in society. The dignity of work must be recognised with just wages and safe conditions." The editor also reconises, "We will always be with them in their peaceful and just demands for wage increments and the improvement of their working conditions," and that, "Anything our workers have attained was granted to them only after a grueling fight, after strikes and organised movements demanding wage increases."

However, I don't think The Post editor has a very fully developed view of what legal rights workers in Zambia enjoy. Yes, they can 'form associations' for collective bargaining. But, without the right to strike, which is virtually impossible to do legally in Zambia, workers are not really able to negotiate with bosses through their trade unions; rather the union officials are left to beg for better wages. The workers at Chambishi claim they are being paid narrowly above Zambia's pathetically low minimum wage. It is thus to a degree inevitable that if they attempt to press for better conditions outside of formal union negotiations that do not appear to have got them very far so far, things will proceed in a chaotic manner.

The editorial strikes me as a missed opportunity. Any review of the situation at Chambishi, which is apparently in the pipeline, should focus attention on the inadequacy of labor legislation and shoudl press for the recognition of the rights of workers, including those on temporary contracts, to be represented by unions and to withdraw their labour in strike actions.