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Raw Encounters: Chinese Managers, African Workers and the Politics of Casualization in Africa's Chinese Enclaves*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2009

Ching Kwan Lee
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Abstract

This article examines one of the pre-eminent logics of global capital flow – the pursuit of flexible labour regimes – as a window to explore the interaction between Chinese investments and African communities. It analyses the respective “politics of casualization” in the Chambishi mine on the Zambian Copperbelt and the Tanzania–China Friendship Mill in the port city of Dar es Salaam. Both Zambian and Tanzanian workers have witnessed and resisted precipitous “informalization” of employment since the Chinese assumed full or majority ownership in the late 1990s. Wildcat strikes were staged by workers in both cases. Nevertheless, Zambian copper miners, but not Tanzanian textile workers, seem to have successfully halted this tendency of casualization. After several years of struggle, in 2007 they signed new collective agreements with the Chinese management, who agreed gradually to convert all casual and contract jobs into “permanent” pensionable ones. By explaining the divergent outcomes of these two cases of labour resistance, I hope to identify the major factors shaping the encounter between Chinese managers and African workers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 199 , September 2009 , pp. 647 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2009

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References

1 The Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, US Congress, “China's influence in Africa,” serial no. 109–74, 28 July 2005, http://www.house.gov/international_relations; “Age of the dragon: China's conquest of Africa,” Spiegel (online), 30 May 2007; “Chinese influx revives colonial fears,” The Guardian Weekly (online), 3 August 2007.

2 I have attended two continent-wide trade union conferences in the past two years on “China in Africa” and both highlighted casualization as the main challenge for African workers employed by Chinese companies.

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10 Ibid. appendix 4, p. 73.

11 Interview with the human resource manager at NFCA, 28 August 2007. For instance, in 2002, they employed 627 casuals and 306 contracts; in 2004, the respective figures were 588 and 232.

12 Fraser and Lungu, For Whom the Windfalls? p. 23.

13 Interviews with Urafiki management, 22 August 2007.

14 Data compiled by the Urafiki branch secretary of Trade Union of Industrial and Commerical Workers (TUICO), 15 December 2007.

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17 Interview with Urafiki management, Dar es Salaam, 24 August 2007. Thanks to Jamie Monson who pointed out to me that this salary payment practice was already in place in the 1960s and 1970s.

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21 Interview with Urafiki management, Dar es Salaam, 22 August 2007.

22 Interview with NFCA management, Chambishi, 1 July 2007.

23 Interview with NFCA management, Chambishi, 28 August 2007.

24 Jamie Monson described a similarly insulated living arrangement, relentless work pace and an ethics of hard work among the Chinese sent to build the Tazara in the 1970s. See her Africa's Freedom Railway.

25 Interview with Urafiki management, Dar, 24 August 2007.

26 Interview with a union representative, Chambishi, 29 August 2007.

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28 Interview with a female electrical engineer at Urafiki, Dar es Salaam, 20 October 2007.

29 Interview with a female weaver at Urafiki, Dar es Salaam, 12 December 2007.

30 Interview with a male technician at Urafiki, Dar es Salaam, 15 October 2007.

31 Interview with a construction department worker at Urafiki, Dar es Salamm, 10 December 2007.

32 Interview with a miner, Chambishi, 29 August 2007.

33 Interview with a worker in the concentrator, Chambishi, 28 August 2007.

34 Interview with a shop steward, Chambishi, 28 August 2007.

35 Interview with a NFCA miner, Chambishi, 28 August 2007.

36 Copper prices have been stable for many years. In fact, from the late 1990s to 2003, the London Metal Exchange copper price sat below US$2,000 per ton. It climbed sharply in 2004, peaking in mid-2006 at almost $9,000 a tonne. More recently it has traded between $5,000 and $7,000. It's worth noting that the average price between 1998 and 2003 was only $1,650 a ton. Paul Stathis, “What's really driving the price of copper?” 20 August 2007, http://www.electricalsolutions.net.au/feature_article/article.asp?item=1435.

37 Interview with a miner at NFCA, Chambishi township, 28 August 2007.

38 Interview with the union branch secretary at NFCA, Chingola, 4 December 2007.

39 Ibid.

40 Interview with a miner at NFCA, Chambishi township, 4 July 2007.

41 This is a Swahili saying for those who are oppressed but cannot access any help. When fish cries, tears are washed away by water so no one can notice that it is crying. Interview with a male technician at Urafiki, 15 October 2007.

42 Interview with a worker at Urafiki, Dar es Salaam, 10 December 2007.

43 Interview with a union branch secretary at Urafiki, 10 December 2007.

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45 By 1980, expatriates represented only 4.7% of the workforce, down from 16% in 1964. Zambians earned between half and two-thirds of the wages of expatriates doing the same job, the latter also receiving additional benefits. Larmer, Mineworkers in Zambia, pp. 107–08.

46 Ibid. chs. 4 and 5.

47 Interview with a miner at NFCA, Chambishi township, 28 August 2007.

48 Challenging the close ties between MUZ and the government, a new rival National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW) was registered in 2004, representing miners who are new recruits in the privatized mining houses. At NFCA, NUMAW represented all but the 50-plus permanent employees staying on after privatization.

49 Interview with a miner at NFCA, Chambishi, 28 August 2007.

50 Yaroslav Trofimov, “In Africa: China's expansion begins to stir resentment,” Wall Street Journal, 2 February 2007, p. A1.

51 Isabel Chimangeni, “Chinese presence met with resistance,” 18 July 2006, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35152; see also Schatz, Joseph A. “Zambian hopeful takes a swing at China,” The Washington Post, 25 September 2006, A16Google Scholar; Larmer, Miles and Fraser, Alastair, “Of cabbages and King Cobra: populist politics and Zambia's 2006 election,” African Affairs, No. 106 (2007), pp. 611–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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