admin Davies Ndumiso Sibanda Labour matters
LABOUR laws governing the mining industry have been overtaken by times.
As a result many employers and workers in the sector now take their disputes to labour officers who are generally faster and are more sensitive to the reality on the ground than the national employment council (NEC), which is now being held back by collective bargaining agreements that date back many years.
While the NEC has done an excellent job in looking after miners’ pensions in very difficult times, the NEC is not able to cope with the many changes in the mining industry.
Many workers have abandoned the NEC and formed splinter unions in search of a fair deal, which has remained elusive as all the new unions operate outside the NEC and have no legal right to enforce collective agreements unlike the union inside the NEC.
The reality on the ground is that the method of working in many small-scale mines, which are estimated to employ more than 300,000 workers, is not conventional.
Nobody is employed to earn a wage or salary at the end of the day. Workers’ compensation is predominantly based on sharing the proceeds of mining.
There are various formulae that are used to calculate what is due to everybody after costs have been removed. Usually the owner of the mine and the provider of inputs gets a higher percentage.
We cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend such kind of work does not exist when a chunk of our working population depends on it.
You can call them, makorokoza, otsheketsha, gold panners or small -scale miners, but these people are contributing to employment and unfortunately this is an unregulated area of mining in terms of labour laws.
It is generally the survival of the fittest or the workers depend on the magnanimity of the mining claim owner or the one who has provided inputs.
The working conditions are generally harsh, very much performance-driven as you share what you mine thus everyone is concerned about the grade of ore, safety rules do not exist, candles, paraffin lights, gas lights and others are used.
The workings can be highly dangerous with unregulated blasting usually using illegally acquired explosives used by untrained people.
The product if it is gold is also a high risk as very little of it can land one in several years of imprisonment.
Most of these workers are self-employed and they are clear about that and move from mine to mine in search of workings with higher grades of minerals.
All these estimated 300,000 plus people work in a new environment beyond the reach of the NEC and nobody has cared to understand this new phenomenon so as to assist in bringing some order to ensure safety of everyone involved and to also ensure that such mining becomes sustainable.
The social and health side of many people in small-scale mining is not anything to write home about as many do not get proper meals or accommodation and are exposed to health hazards related to mining as there are no safeguards.
In the end many are dying of unsafe mining related illnesses. The number might not be known as most just leave the mining sites to go and die at their homes under the care of family members who cannot afford medication.
Another sad thing is that many young miners, due to lack of guidance, have nothing to show that they have been mining for a long time as once they get a “lot” of money, it is spent on non-valuable activities and then they go back to mining.
There are no welfare officers to counsel these people on the importance of investment.
In conclusion, there is a need to accept that small-scale mining is going to be with us for a long time and as such we should move to create a measure of sanity otherwise so many lives will be lost to this newly found form of “self-employment”.
Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: email: [email protected] or cell No: 0772 375 235
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