Chinese investments, Marange diamonds and ‘militarised capitalism’ in Zimbabwe

Nunurayi Mutyanda

Crispen Chinguno

Taurai Mereki

For the past two decades, China has undergone a massive global economic expansion and a continued search for resources to keep up its high growth targets. This converged with Zimbabwe’s adoption of a look East economic policy in 2003, following a fall out with the West. As a result there have been massive Chinese investments in various Zimbabwean sectors including mining, telecommunications, infrastructure development, agriculture and retail. This paper examines the experience of workers in Chinese investments, drawing from Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe. 

The mining potential of the Marange fields was discovered in 2006 following the unorthodox withdrawal of mining rights from the British-owned African Consolidated Resources (ACR) due to a strained relationship between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom (Sokwanele, 2011). 

‘Militarised’ capitalism

Zimbabwe discovered its biggest diamond deposit when it was under sanctions from the European Union and the United States. Underlying politics and the mineral rights legal wrangle presented an impediment for the attraction of investors. The regime was thus forced to adopt a militarised model of capitalism, a mining exploitation regime controlled by the military and its associates. Its industrial relations model is not receptive to independent trade unions. To start up the diamond mining operations at Marange, the government established a subsidiary closely linked to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) through a parastatal, the Mineral Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) (ibid). This was the onset of the militarisation of the Marange diamond mining operations and has a bearing on the labour relations that evolved.

Reducing inequality will not happen on its own – explicit policies are needed

Janine Berg

For the past decades, in many countries of the world, the State has slowly retreated amidst the belief that by giving more space to market forces there would be greater economic growth and thus greater economic opportunities. This belief was manifest in the drive to liberalize goods and financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s across the world, and in the decreased investment by the public sector of many advanced economies in public services and goods as well as in redistributive policies.

Not all countries instituted these changes as wholeheartedly as others, and not all countries originated from the same starting point, but the overall effect has been rising inequality in most parts of the world: North America, Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa. Latin American in the 2000s (though not in the 1980s and 1990s) stands as an exception, largely because many countries in the region increased public investment, strengthened minimum wages and instituted redistributive policies during this decade.

Over the past few years, the increase in inequality has become a growing concern among policymakers and the public at large. But while the problem is now recognized, many of the policy solutions advanced are the same as those espoused during the onset of globalization, namely improving workers’ skills so that they can better compete in the labour market.

The Transformation of the Construction Sector in South Africa since apartheid: Social inequality and labour

Eddie Cottle

Over the past 20 years South Africa’s construction sector has undergone marked expansion. In the apartheid era it was constrained by sanctions and racial policies. However, the post-apartheid state actively encouraged a series of policy measures to foster the economic growth of South African construction firms. Key to the policy process was the establishment of a Construction Industry Development Board, a Register of Contractors, the scheduling of public sector spending through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework process, and support programmes to develop the emerging black contractors. The post-apartheid state also became the construction sector’s biggest single client in the delivery of social and economic infrastructure. 

The almost immediate shift from the social democratic Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1994 to a series of neo-liberal macro-economic policies, from 1996 onwards, ensured increasing levels of labour flexibility and improved productivity of the labour force. State intervention was therefore crucial in ensuring that the construction sector enjoyed 18 years of sustained economic growth with an average GDP contribution of 2.3 per cent over a 20 year period.

Preconditions for successful implementation of the new minimum wage in Germany

Thorsten Schulten

It is just a few weeks since the minimum wage was introduced in Germany, but it is already becoming very clear that its implementation in practice really cannot be taken for granted. Scarcely a day goes by without the media reporting new minimum wage breaches. Online, meanwhile, law firms openly offer counselling on how to sidestep the minimum wage. And every day on the minimum wage hotline set up by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), hundreds of employees tell of the sometimes highly devious attempts being made to do them out of the minimum wage.

Back in the autumn of last year, in a study commissioned by the Labour Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Hans Böckler Foundation’s Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) was already asking questions about the preconditions for the successful implementation of minimum wages. It examined examples from other European countries (France, the UK and the Netherlands), as well as German experiences with regional and sectoral minimum wages, which have existed for quite some time.[1]  Basically, it identified five factors for success:

1. A precise and manageable definition of the minimum wage
2. Clear, checkable provisions on the relationship between the minimum wage and working times 
3. The existence of efficient monitoring institutions and processes 
4. Effective instruments for wage-earners to get their minimum wage entitlements applied 
5. The broadest possible social acceptance, including by large sections of business. 

We are Steaming Ahead: NUMSA’s Road to the Left

Karl Cloete

The expulsion of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in November 2014 was a watershed moment. It deepened further the crisis in the Alliance between the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In addition to fighting for a radical shift amongst trade unions, NUMSA also played a major role in the establishment of a new United Front which will be launched in 2015.

In December 2014 Sam Ashman (SA) and Nicolas Pons-Vignon (NPV) interviewed Karl Cloete (KC) about a tumultuous year and the road ahead.

SA / NPV: Those who are not in South Africa may think that NUMSA is responsible for undermining COSATU and working class unity. How would you respond to this?

KC: When COSATU was established in 1985, NUMSA was in the centre of the unity talks. COSATU was a product of collective struggle and the federation shook the South African landscape under apartheid and played an important part in the 1994 democratic breakthrough. But COSATU, particularly over the last eight years, has almost totally shed its independence. It has become embroiled in factional politics within the ANC and the SACP. The COSATU that used to be a campaigning formation has become an organisation unable to take forward critical struggles – around precarious work, unemployment, the privatisation and commodification of services. We are challenging legally our expulsion and we have appealed for the convening of a COSATU Special National Congress (SNC). COSATU’s history is not something you walk away from easily.