Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union (ZDAMWU) notes and welcomes the Government of Zimbabwe’s recent decision to immediately suspend the export of all raw minerals and lithium concentrates as a step towards in-country value addition and beneficiation in line with the Africa Mining Vision (AMV).
This policy direction is consistent with broader African efforts to move away from exporting unprocessed minerals and to anchor mineral wealth in industrialisation, decent jobs and sustainable community development, and Zimbabwe is moving in tandem with continental best practice.
As ZDAMWU, we support this move by government because it reflects the AMV’s call for transparent, equitable and optimal exploitation of mineral resources, and for a mining sector that is safe, healthy, inclusive and socially responsible. At the same time, we underline that all policy and investment decisions in the critical minerals value chain must be guided by robust Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) standards, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, so that companies and state entities identify, prevent, mitigate and account for actual and potential adverse impacts on workers and communities at every stage of extraction, processing, transport and trade.
However, while we endorse the objective of maximising national benefit from our minerals, we are concerned about the potential impact of sudden policy shifts on mine workers’ jobs, incomes and working conditions. We therefore respectfully call on the Honourable Minister of Mines and Mining Development to adopt a more inclusive and consultative approach going forward, in full alignment with the AMV’s emphasis on participatory, rights-based mineral governance that involves workers, communities and other non-state actors, and to ensure that all new beneficiation and value addition projects in the critical minerals sector incorporate enforceable HRDD obligations, including respect for freedom of association, safe and healthy working conditions, non-discrimination, gender equality and effective access to remedy.
In practical terms, this means structured social dialogue with us trade unions on implementation modalities, clear timelines and transition measures, binding safeguards to prevent job losses or unpaid lay-offs, and guarantees that any new processing plants are unionised, safe and fully compliant with labour, health and safety and environmental laws.
The noble goal of increasing local value addition must not be achieved at the expense of mine workers and their families; instead, it should translate into more secure and decent jobs, better wages, skills upgrading, and improved living standards, environmental quality and social services for people residing in mining communities, as envisaged in the Africa Mining Vision.
ZDAMWU stands ready to work with the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, employers (Chamber of Mines) and other stakeholders to ensure that Zimbabwe’s new export framework for critical minerals delivers both increased national value and genuine respect for human rights and decent work, in the true spirit of the Africa Mining Vision.
*JUSTICE CHINHEMA
ZDAMWU General Secretary
0772976261/0717803553*
