Zambezia (1991), XVIII (i).LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEESTABLISHED AFTER INDEPENDENCERUDO B. GAIDZANWADepartment of Sociology, University of ZimbabweThis article is based on research conducted between 1989 and 1991 at agold mine located in southern Zimbabwe. The mine was established in1980 as the first post-Independence project of a mining multinational withits headquarters in the United Kingdom. The mine itself has about 8 000people living in its area of jurisdiction, which in turn is located in themiddle of a communal area with a population estimated at 52 000. Thearea falls into Agro-Ecological Region IV which is suitable for semi-extensiveranching. The rainfall is patchy and ineffective and the average temperatureranges between 17° and 26°C. The soils in the communal area are sandyloams of low fertility because of the continual cropping, with low soil-nutrient inputs. The topography is varied, with some of the areas beingsloping and rocky.The major crops grown by the farmers are maize, groundnuts, sorghum,sunflowers and rapoko. Most of the farmers do not grow enough food bothto feed themselves and to market to meet their cash needs. There is a lowturnover of crops in the local markets and an estimated 65 per cent of thepeople in the communal area receive drought relief and participate infood-for-work programmes. Livestock ownership varies greatly betweenhouseholds but, in general, cattle ownership is lower than the nationalaverage; at least 21 per cent of the households have no livestock. The lowlivestock numbers can be attributed to poor grazing and high mortalityduring the war years and the droughts of 1982-4.In the area at least 66 per cent of the male heads of household areengaged in wage labour in order to generate off-farm incomes which canbe used to purchase food supplements, agricultural inputs and othernecessities that cannot be produced in the local economy. It is in thiscontext that the intervention of the mining company will be examined.THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 'GOLD MINE'In 1980, when the mine which I shall refer to as Gold Mine was established,there were high expectations on the part of the Black Zimbabweans ingeneral and the people around the mine in particular with respect to thebenefits that were to be extended to the hitherto-disadvantaged sectors ofthe population. It is important to note that in Zimbabwe, until the 1970s,4950 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEthe mining and agricultural industries depended more on Black immigrantunskilled labour than on local unskilled labour. Mining tended to be low-paid, hazardous and unpopular with the locals. The safety records ofsome of the mines, particularly the small ones, were bad. Locals thustended to pursue jobs in the better-paid sectors of the economy, and theywere able to exercise this choice because a large proportion of them heldland rights in the communal areas. These rights were safeguarded andactivated by the wives and dependants of male wage workers, and theyfarmed the land in the absence of their menfolk. Immigrants have not beenable to use these strategies or to fall back on communal land for farming,so they tended to concentrate on waged jobs wherever they could securethem, which explains their preponderance in the mining industry. AfterIndependence Zimbabwe's mining companies were under pressure toimprove the conditions of the Black working class, to repay the historicaldebt accumulated through their poor working conditions, wages andgeneral treatment of labour. The mining company felt these pressures,reflected in the calls for accelerated Black advancement in all sectors ofthe economy, quite acutely.The mining company was thus interested both in making profits andin demonstrating to the government that it was willing to play a part in theconstruction of the new society after Independence. The government wasstill learning how to run the affairs of the state, but it had made it clearthat workers were to be treated in a humane fashion and that the crudedomination and mistreatment of Black labour by White capital throughpredominantly White management were no longer acceptable in an inde-pendent Zimbabwe.The people were guarded in their reaction to the mine, because it wasnecessary to resettle the people who lived on the land that was to beoccupied by the mine. The communal area was quite densely populatedand the mine would take up 340 hectares of land. The mining companyfirst negotiated compensation arrangements with locals whose land wasrequired. An agreement was eventually reached between the villagers andthe mining company whereby 1 270 hectares of land were purchasedadjacent to the communal area to resettle all the people whose land wasoccupied by the mine. Altogether, 116 families were resettled and twoschools, roads, boreholes and a church were built by the mining companyin the resettlement area. The company also paid out each family for lostagricultural land and investments, and provided transport to the resettle-ment area. The two headmen whose villages were affected supervised themove. The company spent Z$318 000 on resettling the villagers so that, bySeptember 1980, it could start constructing its mine and township.By 1982 Gold Mine employed 930 permanent workers and 35 per centof these workers came from communal areas within the jurisdiction of theRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 51area's District Council. It is important to note that people from theimmediately-adjacent communal area were not happy about the numberof villagers who had been employed at Gold Mine. From their discussionswith mine officials when the mine was being set up and 'sold' to them, theyhad expected more of their people to be employed. The mining companyneeded people with some mining experience, which the villagers did notpossess. This issue remained unresolved and was to resurface again andagain in varying contexts in the relationship between workers and officialsat Gold Mine.The political climate in 1980 was very different from that in colonialtimes, and mine officials recognized the need to treat the villagers as wellas the mine employees carefully if the whole mining enterprise was tosucceed. Independence had brought with it new political structures in-herited from the liberation war. The ruling party, ZANU(PF), had createdneighbourhood committees which had been used to co-ordinate the pro-visioning of and intelligence-gathering for the guerrillas during the war. Theruling party strengthened these structures after the war and the activistsin the party had a ready-made constituency among the mine employees.Party officials were also eager to flex their political muscles after Inde-pendence, given that a new political culture was in the process of formation.These officials were well placed to direct the new political culture within aswell as outside the workplace. Moreover, the peasants and workers wereexuberant because they saw the White colonial regime as having beendefeated. They were confident and defiant in their dealings with the Whitesand any structures that they perceived as being controlled by Whitepeople. In 1980 the Industrial Conciliation Act was still in operation andregulated the relationship between labour, the state and capital in mostenterprises. Under this legislation, labour's scope for industrial actionwas heavily circumscribed. Within this context, industrial relations atGold Mine were established.Gold Mine's interactions with the surrounding villagers was and isgoverned by the Mines and Minerals Act (Chapter 165), which allows anyperson to peg a mining claim and to conduct explorations for mineralsunderground anywhere in Zimbabwe. No landholder may deny a prospectorpermission to explore for minerals. The rights of landholders apply onlyto soil and vegetation, for anything below the ground is the property of thestate and can be exploited by any claim-holder with state permission.However, it is incumbent upon the claim-holder to conduct miningoperations in such a way that the activities of landholders are not disrupted.Thus the village people, some of whom were also employed at the mine,encountered the mine structures within as well as outside the workplace,since exploration activities continued in the communal area even after themine had been established.52 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AT GOLD MINEPaterson's (1972) job evaluation system was used for grading all jobs.With the exception of the mine manager, employees fell into 19 grades,with differential pay scales and conditions of service linked to thesegradings. In 1982 Gold Mine employees were distributed as follows:GradesGradesGradesGrades14915-3-8-14-194893705813unskilled minerssemi-skilled minersskilled operativessupervisors/managersPatersonPatersonPatersonPatersonA bandB bandCbandD/E bandsThe employees were organized into eight functional departments:engineering, geology, survey, administration, security, milling, mining andpersonnel. The mining and milling departments were combined into oneproduction unit which employed 62 per cent of Gold Mine's labour force.In 1982 400 of the workers belonged to the Zimbabwe Associated Mine-workers' Union. At the same time, the workers' committee and workscouncil functioned to regulate relationships between workers and manage-ment within the enterprise.The system of workers' committees and works councils withinenterprises was a result of the labour unrest that had been experiencednationwide in 1980 and 1981. Most wage workers were dissatisfied withthe prospect of continuing to operate under the Industrial ConciliationAct, which they viewed as anti-worker in its thrust and conciliatory in itsapproach. The government was forced to put into place a series of changesthat were calculated to safeguard workers' interests until new labourlegislation could be passed.In the meantime, employers whose operations had thrived on thebasis of cheap Black labour found themselves in trouble because of theminimum wages laid down after Independence. They also found it difficultto lay off labour because the state (in the new Employment Act, No. 13 of1980) made it mandatory for employers to obtain state approval beforeany retrenchment of labour could be effected. At workplaces employersand employees had to interact within the rubric of the workers' committeesand works councils. Although the objectionable parts of the IndustrialConciliation Act were amended by the Industrial Conciliation AmendmentAct (No. 23 of 1981), the labour legislation that was to replace the IndustrialConciliation Act became law only at the end of 1985. For employers therewas little room for manoeuvre with respect to disciplining labour throughretrenchment or suspension. The processes for getting state approvaltended to be bureaucratic and cumbersome. Some employers managed tosecure permission to retrench their labour, while others resorted to hiringseasonal, casual or temporary, rather than permanent, unskilled labour.RUDO B. GAIDZANWA 53The mining group to which Gold Mine belongs had its first major post-Independence experience of retrenchment, dismissal and redeploymentof labour when one of its nickel mines had to be closed because of the fallin nickel prices in international markets coupled with the poor-quality orebodies at the mine. There was a long delay by the state in grantingpermission, but the nickel mine did eventually close, although the delaycost the mining company more than Z$3 million. Workers were givenvarious options at closure. They were offered favourable terminal benefits,depending on their grades, or the option of transfer to other operations inthe group where their skills were needed. Some of the immigrant workersopted to be repatriated to their countries of origin, such as Malawi,Zambia and Mozambique.The absorption of workers from the nickel mine into Gold Mine'soperations, thus accounted for the relatively small numbers of local peopletaken on when the mine started operating at full capacity. This was resentedby the local workers, who felt that their earlier agreement with thecompany's officials had been breached. But, as noted earlier, the mineofficials argued that they needed miners with some experience and couldnot accept inexperienced workers.Compromise between workers and management was frequent,particularly with respect to dismissal and suspension from work. Therewere many incidents where management decided merely to issue 'final'warnings to workers in breach of mining and company regulations, at leastsome of whom could have been summarily dismissed had managementwished to do so. But management needed to maintain good relations withboth the labour relations officials and the workers' committee on themine. It was necessary to deal reasonably with the workers' committeebecause the mine management depended on it to communicate effectivelywith workers. In situations of conflict old 'favours' from management inretaining workers when they could have been fired could be useful ingetting the workers' co-operation. It was also necessary at times for manage-ment to boost the credibility of the workers' committee if it was to betaken seriously by the workers. One sees the contrast between thesecases and those in which the Ministry of Labour's industrial relationsofficers were tardy in dealing with requests for suspension and dismissal,usually pleading lack of transport to the mine as an explanation for theirslow response to management's communications; in a few such instances,the mine sent a car to fetch the industrial relations officers to the mine tohear cases.In return, the industrial relations officers would point out some of theerrors in procedure on the part of the mine management and deal withrequests in a conciliatory manner. For example, at the beginning of the1980s, the industrial relations officers used to stick to the technicalities of54 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEthe law with respect to issues of suspension and firing. They would reinstateworkers who had been suspended or dismissed in a manner which wastechnically incorrect, even though the offence might legally merit such adecision if it was executed in the technically correct manner. As time wenton, they started advising mine management on what not to do in order toavoid situations where dismissed workers were reinstated pending dis-missal in a legally acceptable manner.The state's role in this process of adjustment between workers andmanagement in the post-Independence era is important because it laiddown the rules within which both labour and capital had to operate. Thestate found its regulatory role more difficult to effect as the economicrecession deepened in Zimbabwe, but its labour relations officers wereslow in replying to letters requesting legal permission to suspend ordismiss erring workers. This had the effect of undermining discipline,because the workers were able to see their colleagues who had floutedregulations continuing to work without penalty. For example, some workersreported to work drunk or slept on duty and their disciplinary casesdragged on for months because permission had not been secured for theirdismissal. Assaults on supervisors were reported and these cases took aninordinately long time to process.Drunkenness was quite dangerous in the mine since workers usedheavy equipment which was difficult to manipulate. Drunken workers alsoendangered the lives of their colleagues when dealing with explosives anddrilling in small spaces. Carelessness could result in severe injuries andeven death. The cumbersome bureaucratic procedures of the stateeffectively reinforced worker indiscipline and undermined the state itself,which was viewed by management as having a negative approach toregulation. Management generally felt that state bureaucrats had no ap-preciation of issues pertaining to efficiency and profitability in enterprises.The sluggishness of the state bureaucracy also made the work of thenewly appointed Black supervisory staff harder and undermined theirauthority at work.Thus the realities of everyday existence and the need to maintain apeaceful and workable co-existence, led workers, management and statefunctionaries to manipulate their bureaucratic interactions in extra-bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic ways.RACE AND CLASS AT GOLD MINEWithin the mining group pressures to Africanize the higher-level jobs werestrong. The jobs that were Africanized first were those which were notrelated directly to production. Thus the most senior Blacks were in personneland public relations. The chairman of the group was a Black formerRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 55headmaster and board member at different institutions. The personnelsuperintendent at Gold Mine was a Black male graduate from the nationaluniversity, but the group's director of personnel was a White man.The mining and reduction departments, the major production units,were managed by Whites. The mining department had acquired its firstBlack underground manager only in the late 1980s. Black male graduateswere hired in the metallurgy and geology departments: they were mostlyinexperienced and had replaced Whites (who had left for South Africa, beenpromoted within the group, or had left to take up better jobs elsewhere).These young Black male graduates were highly conscious and critical of thedominance of Whites in the managerial ranks of the mining group.A group of skilled middle-level operatives was Black. They were mostlyfitters, turners and miners who had qualified at the mine school in Bulawayoand had accumulated experience on the job. Below these certified, skilledworkers were the semi-skilled miners who had gained their knowledge onthe job and had been working on the mines for longer than their certifiedcounterparts.These differentiations in skill were reflected in the social stratificationof housing and services within the relatively closed mine community, inwhich the division between work and home was not pronounced. Eachstratum of workers had its residential zone with distinct types of housingand environmental standards. The zones were clearly separated. The low-income, unskilled workers were all Black and were housed in 682 semi-detached houses sited close to the mine to facilitate access to the workplace.Each semi-detached house consisted of a lounge, two bedrooms, a kitchen,inside toilet and shower. All the houses had electricity and running water.Adjacent to this zone was the area for middle-income employees. Therewere 41 houses in this area, all detached. Each house had three bedrooms, alounge/dining room, spacious fitted kitchen, inside bathroom and toilet withhot and cold running water. The senior employees lived in 43 detachedhouses with separate bathrooms and toilets, three or four bedrooms, agarage or carport and a bathroom en suite. Bachelors in the skilled gradeswere housed in the single quarters next to the social club patronized by thesenior employees. There was some housing under construction toaccommodate those employees still living in temporary quarters.Three social clubs provided recreational facilities for the employees,with a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, squash courts and swimmingpools. In theory, all the social clubs were open to all employees, but, inpractice, clubs were stratified by income and grade, with the skilledworkers patronizing the clubs with higher fees and sports such as tennis,golf and squash. The unskilled employees patronized the club with lowerfees and sports such as soccer. In addition to the clubs, a tavern servingclear and opaque beer served the mine residents and many people from56 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEthe neighbouring communal area. The mine was served by a post office,police station, petrol station, bank and supermarket. Small traders alsosold vegetables, fruit and other commodities at the mine's business centre.A primary school served the children of the low- and middle-incomeworkers. The children of the higher-income workers attended privateschools in the major towns. Two pre-schools were also organized alongthe lines of parental income, with the one for the higher-income workers'children charging higher fees than that for the children of the low-incomeworkers. The mining company also built a secondary school for the miners'children, which accepted children from the surrounding rural areas as well.The social differentiation described above pervaded most interactionsamong workers, within as well as outside the distinctions of race, classand ethnicity. Those Black employees who were seen by the Black unskilledworkers to have benefited from Independence, felt aggrieved becausethey perceived their White seniors as racist and unfair in their practiceswithin as well as outside the workplace. In 1983 at least two meetings hadbeen held with the mine manager and the area industrial relations officerto protest about racism in the location of houses. The mine manageragreed that racial criteria had been used in the allocation and distributionof houses and pledged to do something to integrate all employees regard-less of colour.On issues of grading and promotion the feelings of the skilled Blackswere even stronger than about housing. As more Black mine captainswere appointed, planning meetings were no longer open to mine captainsas before. There were allegations of preferential treatment of Whites, whowere seen as having access to real promotions whereas Blacks tended tobe offered lateral transfers in lieu of promotion. Nepotism among theWhites was also alleged in grading, and Whites who felt restive wereapparently given financial incentives and promotions to stay though Blackswere not treated likewise. Generally, these Blacks felt that their promotionswere window-dressing, since they had no substance in practice. The seniorBlacks were unhappy feeling that they suffered doubly by being dislikedand resented by their unskilled Black subordinates and mistreated andridiculed by their White equals and superiors.These issues were considered at a meeting between the generalmanager, the mine manager, the underground manager and the seniorBlacks. However, only the management grades were invited to that meeting,so all of the senior Blacks not in management were excluded. At thatmeeting the general manager insisted that the company wished Blackmanagement staff to identify with management. He asserted that theytended to identify with the Black workers and to complain that they wereused as window-dressing. He exhorted them to be willing to make theunpopular decisions which went with the responsibility of their jobs. HeRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 57disagreed with those people who wanted authority without responsibilityfor fear of being branded 'sell-outs'. On the exclusion of those non-management staff members who were said to be the leaders of the "Blackcaucus', he observed that, if managers were being led by their non-management counterparts, then the company had erred in its promotions.He then went on to explain the reasons for the decisions regarding housing.transport, planning meetings, resignations and racism, denying any window-dressing in promotions in the company. As a result of this meeting, someprocedures were altered to ensure racial equity in housing, and minecaptains were brought back into the planning meetings. But allegations ofracism did not stop and they have surfaced periodically since that meetingas the perceptions of Black workers and management staff have respondedto post-colonial adjustments in which political, social and economic forcesmade some relationships uncomfortable.Gold Mine has also had to deal with problems arising from the newlabour regulations effected by the state. At Gold Mine the power of a statecontrolled by Blacks was viewed by the Black workers as a boost to theirworkplace struggles. By June 1982 what was described by the personnelmanager as 'industrial unrest' had been reported at the mine. This unrestoccurred just two days before the official opening of the mine by thePrime Minister. The unrest took the form of an unofficial go-slow by theunderground workforce. Discipline was said to be poor and supervisorswere unable to get the miners to mine. The underlying threat was that theminers would ruin the official opening of the mine by the Prime Minister.The cause of this go-slow was apparently the workers' anger at having towork on the Sunday after the official opening of the mine on the Friday.which was declared a day off for all the workers so that they could see thePrime Minister. The idea of juggling work-time in this way was apparentlymooted by the workers' committee and the mineworkers' union. Accordingto the workers' committee representatives, the workers themselves hadrejected the idea of working on either the Sunday or the Friday.When the mine personnel staff tried to persuade the workers' repre-sentatives to convince the workers that the company and the countrycould not afford the loss of a day's production and its foreign-exchangevalue, the workers' representatives were not at all impressed. Instead, therepresentatives suggested that they might try to persuade the workers towork on the Sunday, provided that they got the Friday off and overtimerates for the Sunday. The mine officials resisted paying two and half days'wages for one day's work, but, in the end, acceded to this request oncondition that production and discipline underground returned to normal.Senior mine officials clearly recognized that their arms were beingtwisted and that the company would lose political face if there was anydisruption of the Prime Minister's visit by the workers. Interviews conducted58 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEwith some Black underground supervisors confirmed that the workerswould not work and were resistant to any form of discipline from theirseniors. The workers were quite aware that firing was difficult since ministryapproval had to be secured first. Supervisors had been threatened withassault (one actually was assaulted) and insulted and accused of being'Rhodesian' when they tried to enforce the rules regarding work. Theyreported malingering by some workers, and threats to their families whenthey disciplined workers. Some supervisors were actually told by theunion man who worked underground that the union would handle issuesof discipline. One supervisor mentioned that the work of the lashers andtrammers was being left for the miners and gang leaders. The samesupervisor, on reprimanding a driller who was not doing his work correctly,reported being told by the driller: 'Get your wife to do the drilling'. Thesupervisors also alleged that workers from the surrounding communal areaswere not loyal to the mine or committed to their work, which they viewed asa supplementary source of income to their farming and livestock husbandry.This unrest illustrates some of the problems arising from cross-cuttingloyalties which may conflict at particular moments. The workers feltempowered by their ability to supersede their terms of reference insituations where they could see that it would not be politic for those whoheld formal, contractual authority over them to exercise that authority.This manipulation of situations by labour as well as by the management ofGold Mine was important in their dealings with each other. Thus theoutcomes of specific interactions were quite negotiable, in spite of whatthe law said about contractual obligations. The class issues loomed quitelarge here because the underground workers used the occasion of theofficial opening of the mine to torment their Black superiors who hadbenefited from the company's promotion of Blacks, while simultaneouslytaking a swipe at the predominantly White company officials by threateningto embarrass them when the Prime Minister came to open the mine.GENDER AND CLASS IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AT GOLD MINEThere have been two major incidents of industrial unrest at Gold Mine.The first involved a demonstration carried out by women whose husbandswere involved in a promotion-related dispute at the mine, which eruptedwhen a popular White underground manager left. The major contendersfor the vacant job were two Black mine captains and a White man who hadbeen a lesser-ranked shift boss until just before the post of undergroundmanager had become vacant. The longest-serving mine captain had risenthrough the ranks, while the other contender was a mining engineer witha first-class degree from a British institution. The White contender hadbeen a policeman and, like the most senior Black mine captain, had risenRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 59through the ranks. In terms of overall seniority, the Black mine captainwho had risen through the ranks was the most senior and had assessedthe other two contenders while they were still shift bosses, the Whitecontender very favourably and the Black degreed contender less favourably.The White contender had then been promoted to mine captain just beforethe selection of the successor to the underground manager. The mostsenior Black mine captain had in turn been assessed at shift boss level bythe departed underground manager, whose assessment was less favourablethan the one the Black mine captain had made of the White shift boss whohad been promoted to mine captain.For the purposes of promotion to underground manager, the assess-ments at shift boss level of all applicants were taken into account. Thecontender with the most favourable assessment overall was the newlyappointed White mine captain, who was then appointed undergroundmanager. But, before the selection was finally made, skilled Blacks saidthat the two most senior Black contenders had been asked whether, ifgiven the job of underground manager, they could perform it well. Bothare alleged to have qualified their responses, with at least one of themstating that he could do the job with some help. The general manager'sresponse was believed to have been that the man had to take the job anddo it or turn it down, because everybody had their own jobs and nobodycould help him to do his job. The man is then supposed to have said that,in that case, he would not be able to do the job, which was offered to theWhite contender. The result was the demonstration, led by the wife of thedegreed Black who did not get the job, against racism in the company withparticular reference to promotions. The women called on the new Whiteunderground manager to resign.The area member of Parliament visited the mine in the wake of thisdemonstration and asked company officials to explain why they hadpromoted the White contender with the least experience to the post ofunderground manager. The mine officials produced documentary evidenceto prove that the Black senior mine captain had actually refused the postand that he had assessed the other two contenders and rated the Whitecontender as more competent at shift boss level. The MP felt that thechoice of successor was correct from the evidence of the documents anddid nothing to censure the mine officials. He also asked the personnelsuperintendent for his opinion on the choice of underground manager,who indicated that he agreed with the appointment. This was the beginningof the personnel superintendent's problems with the Women's League ofthe ruling party.In the event, the White manager did not actually take up the substantivepost: he was appointed to act as underground manager but subsequentlyleft to join another operation and a Black underground manager from60 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEanother mining group was appointed. The above case illustrates theconflicts that exist or are perceived to exist among Blacks who aspire topositions vacated by Whites. It is important to note that, in these labourrelations issues which involved workers' wives, the adversaries wereBlacks competing for a common occupational position from the divergingpaths of education and experience.The second demonstration occurred in 1984, when mine workers'wives belonging to the ruling party attempted to overturn the car in whichthe Black personnel superintendent was travelling. They were angry thatthe mine management always wanted to know what was discussed atparty meetings, but they also resented the penetration of the securitydepartment personnel into workers' private lives. The personnelsuperintendent in particular was perceived as high-handed in his inter-actions with miners and their families with respect to housing and othersocial amenities, discipline, discrimination against low-income workers,compensation issues relating to injured workers and other disciplinarymatters. The issue of compensation is important, because mines withpoor safety records, whose workers have to be compensated, pay higherworkmen's compensation insurance premiums. The personnel super-intendent was perceived to be more interested in saving company moneythan in safeguarding the interests of the workers. The women were alsounhappy about what they viewed as the intransigence and lack of co-operation by the personnel superintendent in the provision of communityservices, such as making available the mine bus for shopping trips to thenearest large town, the provision of support to the women's club, theproposed creche, the buying of uniforms for the mine's football club, andthe building of a community hall, to name but a few issues.In mining communities the wives and children of miners interactclosely with the employers of their husbands and fathers. Their housing,schooling, leisure activities and incomes, indeed, their whole lives aredetermined by the mining company, which generates friction. In theirprotests, the women used political symbols and actions in order to foilwhat they perceived to be Gold Mine's management's attempts to controltheir activities. The ruling party was seen as a powerful mediator betweenthe workers and the mine, and workers and their wives believed that thecompany would not want to fall foul of the party unnecessarily. The wivesand the children of the miners were thus incorporated into a relationshipwith the mining company in ways that included but exceeded that emanatingfrom their husbands' direct relationship with their employer. The mineofficials expected the workers' families and households to co-operate inkeeping to the terms and conditions of residence in the township, todesist from interfering with the mine administration and to support theminers in the company's employ. The families expected the company toRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 61provide basic services and to co-operate with them in advancing communityinterests. Periodic negotiations took place within this relationship and, asshown above, the negotiations were sometimes less than amicable. Minemanagement, then, had to deal with their employees' dependents as wellas the employees themselves, and this markedly increased the scope ofindustrial relations. In 1984 the Zimbabwe Republic Police had to be calledin to disperse the women's demonstration.The women's demonstrations resulted in the appointment of a femalecommunity-services officer with a social work background. She subsequentlytook over the tasks of liaising with the mine community and developingcommunity services.THE POSITION OF THE PERSONNEL SUPERINTENDENTThe hostility expressed towards the personnel superintendent was notconfined to workers in the junior grades and their wives. By definition, thepersonnel superintendent's position was a sensitive one, calling for reservesof diplomacy and fairness in dealings with employees. With respect tohousing allocations and other entitlements, the personnel superintendentat Gold Mine was perceived to be punitive and unfair by those in Grade 12and below in his allocation of houses and other perks.One geologist felt particularly hard done by because, he said, thepersonnel superintendent liked to give the impression that he had powerand at times exceeded his authority in order to demonstrate to employeesthat he made decisions affecting them. The geologist alleged that thesuperintendent had paid him at Grade 11 when in fact he was a Grade 12employee. He had discovered this mistake when he was moved into Grade13 after an appraisal which moved him to the next notch. He also pointedout that, despite the fact that the personnel superintendent did not havethe power to allocate houses to employees beyond Grade 11, he gave theimpression that such allocations were his responsibility. The geologistfurther alleged that, because he was unmarried, the personnelsuperintendent had actually tried to kick him out of the house that he wasentitled to. The geologist was indignant about this because he hadvoluntarily stayed in the single quarters, despite the fact that in Grade 13he was entitled to a house regardless of his marital status. He said that thepersonnel superintendent had not informed him, as a Grade 12 employee,of his entitlement to a house. When he then asked for a house, thesuperintendent would not give him one. The geologist had then gone on tohis line manager, who said he had been under the impression that thegeologist was quite happy in the single quarters, but then liaised with themine manager who was responsible for house allocations in the seniorgrades and the geologist moved into a house the following week.62 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEDissatisfaction with the personnel superintendent was also seen as amajor factor in generating the female-led demonstrations. Employeesinterviewed thought that the major reason why the wife of the losingcandidate for the underground manager's post had no problems inmobilizing the community against the mine management was the heavy-handedness of the personnel superintendent in his dealings with thecommunity. Senior Blacks cited their lack of information about perks suchas school fees for their children, relocation allowances which newly-hiredsenior employees were entitled to and other benefits as directly attributableto the superintendent's desire to control and keep secret informationwhich should have been made available to employees. The Black employeessaid they were particularly disadvantaged in this respect since there wereno senior Blacks apart from the superintendent who could make thisinformation available to them if the superintendent did not. The Blackemployees perceived him as someone who did not want to lose face or theappearance of possessing power by referring issues upward if they werebeyond his level of bureaucratic responsibility. Thus, because informationabout perks was not freely available, employees had to enquire from thepersonnel department what their entitlements were and this made themdependent on the personnel superintendent in a way that made themuncomfortable.One of the mine captains who left to work for another mining groupindicated that his treatment by the personnel superintendent contributedto his reasons for leaving. Some employees pointed out that high insurancepremiums, resulting from the many work-related injuries in their enterprise,contributed to the under-reporting of injuries at work. The mine captainwho left was perceived by his peers to have been a victim of thesuperintendent's desire to save the company money by under-reporting,misreporting or delaying the processing of accident reports. This minecaptain's case was often quoted as an example of the superintendent'spreoccupation with saving the company money.The mine captain, then a trainee, was injured underground. A faultyskip was derailed and dragged him for about 50 metres, bumping himagainst the shaft wall. He lost all his teeth, dislocated his knee and had tohave the damaged cartilage removed from the knee. He also injured hisback. He had two operations on his knee to strengthen it and had to get aset of dentures fitted. He could no longer play squash, which was par-ticularly painful to him as he was a keen player. The man stated that hewas injured on a Saturday but that the accident was only investigated thefollowing Monday. He said he was particularly aggrieved by the fact thatthe company doctor determined that he had suffered no lasting disability.The company had been insured by a London-based insurer (Lloyds) but in1984 had changed insurers. The mine captain was then a mining cadet andRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 63was covered by a policy for students which paid a percentage disabilityfor injury. The mine captain said he had not been satisfied with thecompany doctor's determination and had pursued the issue of compen-sation with the underground manager. The underground manager wasgiven the same explanation: that the cadet had suffered no lasting disability.The mine captain (then a cadet) was of the opinion that the company hadcovered up the accident thoroughly. He subsequently personally paid forthe shortfalls on the operations and dental expenses that he incurred. Healso discovered that he had actually been covered by workmen'scompensation but had not been told of this by the company.The reaction of the company personnel, namely the mine managerand the personnel superintendent, to this incident, and the appointmentof a Black underground manager from outside the company, contributedto his decision to leave the company. The mine captain viewed theappointment of an underground manager from outside as a political ruseby the company to frustrate the Blacks inside the company. He was of theopinion that the outside appointee was not competent and that the minecaptains who were in the system had to support this man in theperformance of his job. The new underground manager had performed anappraisal on this mine captain and his appraisal was negative. The minecaptain had successfully contested the appraisal by pointing out how hehad taken on mining responsibilities such as planning, ventilation, etc. Hesaid he had successfully negotiated a salary increase with the newunderground manager and had pointed out the unfairness of paying him aforeman's salary or, at best, the lowest rate for a mine captain. The minecaptain said that when the mine manager was asked to approve his salaryincrement, he was unhappy because he thought that the mine captain hadmanipulated the Black underground manager. Thus the mine managerwas perceived to have had very little confidence in the Black undergroundmanager's judgement about mining, personnel and related issues.The mine captain was extremely demoralized by all these events anddecided to resign. His formal reason for resignation was that he was goingto get married and he wanted to move into an environment in which hiswife could get employment. He requested a terminal interview so that hecould air all his grievances against the company personnel and theirdecisions pertaining to work, hiring and other policies. He said he wasrefused a terminal interview because the personnel staff were quite awareof his dissatisfaction and did not want to avail him of a formal platform forairing his grievances. Thus, the withholding of information regarding hiscompensation claim, the non-payment of compensation, the appointmentof what he perceived to be a 'political' Black who was not competent, allcontributed to his decision to leave the company.The superintendent was perceived by the Blacks who remained in the64 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEcompany to be furthering the interests of the company at the expense ofthe workers purely to save company money and to enhance its safetyrecord. The mining company had, prior to the accident, received an adversereport from the Commissioner of Mines because of its poor safety record.A second geologist related an incident that occurred in theneighbouring communal area during exploration. The geologists drovearound in a Landrover and drilled in various locations, some of whichwere in the peasants' fields. Company policy was to compensate thefarmers for any crop, livestock or other losses resulting from its miningand exploration activities. On one occasion the exploration crew waschased from the area by a farmer brandishing an axe because the farmerhad felt insulted by the way in which the personnel superintendent haddealt with his claim for compensation for some of his maize that had beenflattened by the exploration crew. The personnel superintendent hadapparently taken a mine surveyor with him into the communal area inorder to measure the width of the mine vehicle tracks, after which he issaid to have infuriated the farmer by offering him half a bucket of maize ascompensation and telling him that he would not have realized more thanthe half-bucket anyway since there was a drought that year. The geologistsaid that, after that incident, he preferred to take a more junior personnelman to negotiate with the farmers because the superintendent was likelyto get him killed by the villagers. The more senior Blacks felt that thepersonnel superintendent had poor public relations with communitiesoutside as well as within the mine.The superintendent was in a very sensitive position and was constantlyexpected to tread a fine line in balancing the different interests of thevarious mine constituencies. On the one hand, he had to prove to hisWhite superiors that he could make decisions without fear or favour.Given the sentiments that had been expressed by the group's general,mining and underground managers and the Black skilled employees, thesuperintendent was under pressure to be seen to be identifying with hismanagement colleagues. If he was ineffectual, he could be accused byBlacks of being a window-dressing appointment. On the other hand, if hemade decisions acceptable to Black workers, his White colleagues wouldperceive him as being unwilling to make unpopular decisions. His positionwas aggravated because most of the White employees were on a par withor senior to him in 'hard' operational positions, while personnel wasperceived as a 'soft' area in terms of status, career and long-term managerialprospects in corporate life.As a Black man in the ranks of White colleagues, the personnel super-intendent was under fire from both sides. The Blacks expected him to playan advocacy role across class and gender lines in the mine environmentand when he sided with his class counterparts of a different race he wasRUDO B. GAIDZANWA 65discredited by the majority of the mine community who were predominantlyBlack. The specific problem that he faced within the ranks of the Blackskilled workers was that they did not see him as a potential ally orchampion of their interests. He was effectively marooned among the Whites,with whom he could not interact meaningfully in his private space (hishome) or in their private space outside the social clubs.His dilemma is illustrated by some of the initiatives that he tried totake with regard to informing employees about the terms and conditionsof all workers in the company so that all workers would have a clearpicture of what the lines of command were in routine as well as conflictsituations. Early in 1985 he asked the group to produce an employeehandbook on personnel policies and conditions of service. His senior inhead office was against this move: he did not think it politic to makeinformation about the terms and conditions of senior grades of employeewidely available since this 'would lead to endless demands and complaints'.This case illustrates some of the problems that assail new groups ofpeople who are promoted in isolation from others like them. It is difficultfor a newly promoted person to function where he or she does not have apeer group with similar social characteristics. The position of such isolatedpersons is usually viewed as the result of 'token' appointments and theymay actually overcompensate in their exercise of authority as a result ofthe conflicting pressures brought to bear on them in their everydayworking lives.CONCLUDING DISCUSSIONThe study of labour relations at Gold Mine illustrates the fact that miningproduction relations are not necessarily simple and straightforward orreplicable in all contexts. Specific social, economic and political contextsall affect the ways in which work is organized.After Independence the mining company had to adjust its perceptionsand operations because of the political changes that had taken place since1980. The company could not use the techniques of employer dominancethat had been supported by the colonial order. Alternative ways, withincreased emphases on consent and voluntarism, had to be developed inorder to motivate the workers. In the skilled grades it was important toretain workers who were being motivated to move between enterprisesbecause of the shortage of skilled operatives in the economy. At GoldMine this implied that the frustrations of the Black skilled workers had tobe recognized and handled, even if the handling was not always to theirsatisfaction.In the relations between management and unskilled workers strategiesof work control such as clocks, registers, punch cards and unscheduledchecks proved difficult to effect. At Gold Mine workers were going-slow.66 LABOUR RELATIONS IN A MINING ENTERPRISEmalingering, insulting bosses, arriving late, leaving early and disobeyingthe orders of gang leaders and supervisors, particularly in the 1982-5period. These types of behaviour were extremely taxing to supervisorsand managers who sometimes had to do the work that was supposed to bedone by their subordinates. Such methods and styles of work organizationare in any case quite demanding and management-intensive. They arebased on the assumptions of the irresponsibility of labour and deferenceto management, because managers are supposed to know and direct allthe work that has to be done. These assumptions have a way of becomingself-fulfilling, in that they lock both workers and managements into strictroles that do not leave room for flexibility and innovation in the organizationand performance of work.Such assumptions also derived from work environments socially,economically and culturally different from those in Zimbabwe in generaland Gold Mine in particular. They ignored issues related to age, ethnicity,race, gender and class and resulted in conflicts that retarded theperformance of work. It is necessary for new managerial practices andnon-combative ways of enforcing rules and handling disagreements to bedevised. The situation at Gold Mine, whereby the supervisors could notrelate to workers in order to ensure the desired outcomes in production,is a good example of the fact that hierarchies can operate only if there isconsensus about their legitimacy and desirability. In mining communitieswork and home lives are closely knit. The work of mining is physicallydemanding and potentially hazardous. Thus workers and their familiestend to take a very strong interest in the work and its organization.Moreover, mines have more or less limited lives depending on the quantityand quality of ore reserves and the technologies that are available andaffordable to extract the ores. When the ore grades are poor, closurelooms large, particularly for unskilled workers. This was the situation atGold Mine by mid-1990. The workers were apprehensive and likely to reactstrongly to perceived threats to their livelihoods.In situations of economic downturn, uncertainty and fear for theirjobs tend to dominate workers' thinking. In the current situation of highunemployment in Zimbabwe, labour in general and unskilled workers inparticular find it difficult to extract an advantage from capital. Unskilledworkers can be replaced easily in a labour-surplus economy, so they tendto stay in their jobs, but they also bring their dissatisfactions to bear onthe work and the circumstances of its performance. At Gold Mine thoseworkers from the surrounding communal area were viewed as uncommittedand instrumental in their approach to mine work by the Black supervisors.Immigrant workers, in contrast to their Zimbabwean counterparts, weregenerally less secure and less combative in their workplace interactionswith management. They had fewer options in their immediate environment,RUDO B. GAIDZANWA 67which predisposed them to seek security within rather than outside themining environment. Thus the motivations of the different types of workersare important in understanding and devising managerial strategies forworkplace governance.Skills differentiation among Black workers was also important. Blacksupervisory and management personnel were caught in a conflict in whichexercising the prerogatives of their social class was difficult because oftheir racial identity with their Black subordinates in a situation whereBlacks were in a majority disadvantaged by lack of those skills related tohigh status within the workplace. Black skilled workers adopted variousstrategies to cope with this problem depending on the particular situationsin which they were operating. Some identified with their subordinates,thus earning themselves the contempt of their White superiors: othersexercised their authority as expected and were accused of 'acting White'by their Black subordinates. The positions and manoeuvres of the skilledBlacks were important, reflecting those specific issues they deemed to beimportant at different moments.Within the ranks of the skilled Black workers, differentiation alsooccurred on the basis of education and career path. The conflict betweenthe two Black contenders for the underground manager's job exemplifiesthe differences that arise between those skilled workers who have risenthrough the ranks and have gained practical experience and those whohave entered their jobs at high levels because of the degrees and diplomasthey acquired locally or overseas, often in high-technology traininginstitutions. The experienced but non-degreed skilled workers are usuallyperceived as the proteges of the dominant White management, itself usuallyacademically unqualified but practically experienced. At Gold Mine thelower supervisory and semi-skilled ranks were staffed mainly by immigrantworkers with long experience on the job but no formal mining qualifications.In situations of conflict such workers were assumed to be aligned withWhite management because of their common work experience andsocialization, which were not necessarily shared by the degreed or skilledBlacks or even by the relatively well-schooled Zimbabwean apprentices.I hope that that the questions and issues raised in this case study mayprovide a basis for re-examining and re-analysing theories of management.work and work motivation with respect to mineworkers in Zimbabwe.