By Fanny Kalonda
THREE mine unions on Tuesday held a joint briefing in Chingola to address rumours of Vedanta Resources coming back to run Konkala Copper Mines (KCM).
The trade unions said if “indeed” Vedanta was coming back, the government and President Hakainde Hichilema should compel them to offer better conditions of service to workers.
United Mine Workers Union of Zambia Nchanga branch chairman Emmanuel Singwa said job creation and job security should be among the top priorities Vedanta should be compelled to adhere to.
Singwa said salary increments of up to 40 per cent or more should be given to all mine workers.
“Now, because of this rumour it has made us to gather you here to send a very strong message to Vedanta and to our Republican President. If Vedanta is coming back, there are a lot of things that we need him to improve because as we speak all of you, you saw what was happening when we were chasing Vedanta. There was an involvement of all the stakeholders: suppliers, the union and even the community,” he told journalists in Chingola.
“So, what we are saying is? If this rumour, we are repeating, if this rumour [is true] that Vedanta is coming back, these are the conditions he should follow from us as the union leaders who are representing our members. (1) job security and job creation. That’s the first key.
From the time Vedanta left, we’ve never experienced any redundancies. So, we don’t expect Vedanta to say ‘okay, we are going to cut on labour’. So, we are sending this strong message to the President of Zambia Mr Hakainde Hichilema that as Vedanta comes back, these are the things they should agree upon. And we are speaking this on behalf of all our employees because we work in the same sector.”
He called for improved conditions of service, medical, transport and education allowances.
Singwa also cited improved salaries as another condition Vedanta should meet.
“The second thing is the salary increment. The time he was being chased we stayed for three to four years without a salary increment. And what the employees want today is a salary increment which at least can be reasonable,” said Singwa.
“And, speaking on behalf of all employees, if he comes, we do not expect [him] to give us anything less than 40 per cent. And in fact, he can even improve. The 40 per cent is our target, but him can even do better than that. Those are our conditions.”
National Union of Miners and Allied Workers Nkana branch chairman Given Sinkamba said if Vedanta was coming back to KCM, it should sit down with the unions and reason with them.
Sinkamba said if Vedanta met the set conditions, then the unions would have no choice but to welcome the mining firm back.
“It is a fact that as workers, we have had issues with Vedanta – the manner in which they were running the affairs of KCM. Because of that we had serious issues and everyone was up in arms. Then the government came in to intervene by placing the mine under provisional liquidation. The expectation at that particular time was to make sure that they could engage a new investor or better still inject new capital into the mine,” he explained.
“Now, in the past three years, we have seen a situation where the two parties were involved in court with the understanding that the matter will be resolved very fast. To that effect, nothing has happened. During this time, we see that no capital injection in the mine or asset because the asset without capital injection it means that the asset is deteriorating. And as employees or rather stakeholders we are very much concerned about the community and indeed ourselves as workers’ representatives because without a salary increment in the last three, four years it means our conditions of service have been losing value due to economic shocks as well as effects of inflation.”
Sinkamba said since the closure of the mine in 2019, the workforce has drastically reduced.
He however, said the unions were ready to negotiate with Vedanta if the company was willing to do so.
“We’ve been very much concerned, not just concerned, at a time when most of us were employed, the total workforce that time we were 22,000. Currently, we are less than 5,000. We want the community to benefit by way of job creation and job security,” said Sinkamba.
“…But we understand that no situation permanent. If Vedanta wants to come back, we have no problem with that on condition that Vedanta is committed to sitting down with us, reason with us in terms of adjusting our salaries upwards to some reasonable levels which my colleague mentioned here. We are eager to sit down with Vedanta.”