James shows that retrenchments and subcontracting of labour in Zambia’s mining sector have deprived unions of both membership and income. However, the responses that unions have adopted to these challenges e.g. sale of mealie-meal to its members, and creating business links with banks and employers raise serious ideological issues regarding the union’s ability to act as an independent workers’ voice. In addition, although the recruitment of subcontracted workers helps to improve income, it leads to new questions regarding the future of organised labour: given the short-term nature of subcontracting which is growing at alarming rate, what will happen to the future of the union when these workers become majority members of the union? What will happen when these workers begin to assume leadership positions whose term is four years yet their employment is often one to two years? He therefore calls for unions to a) look at other ways of income, and b) to advocate for legislation that not only reduces informalisation, casualisation and subcontracting but also protects the right to unionisation of all categories of workers.
Presentation
Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT) SP-Brazil/ University of Campinas, Campinas /SP-Brazil, São Paulo, 07-09 August 2018. James presented a paper: “Now or never: the future of organised labour in Zambia’s mining sector” in the panel session “Working conditions, subcontracting and precarization” of the 13th Global Labour University Conference, The Future of Work: Democracy, Development and the Role of Labour.