Spinning and weaving discontent: Labour relations and the production of meaning at Zambia-China Mulungushi textiles

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 113-132

  Brooks, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

JOINT VENTURE; LABOR RELATIONS; MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE; TEXTILE INDUSTRY; WAGE; WORKING CONDITIONS;

CENTRAL PROVINCE [ZAMBIA]; KABWE; ZAMBIA;

EID: 77951539806     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057071003607360     Document Type: Article

References (145)

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18. Qingdao Textiles hails from Qingdao City a centre of intensive clothing manufacturing on China's eastern seaboard.
19. Qingdao also took complete ownership of a nearby cotton ginnery. Government of Zambia, Report of the Public Accounts Committee.
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38. Obiorah, 'Who's Afraid of China in Africa?'.
39. As may have the opportunity for 'quota hopping' to gain preferential access to the SADC market. See Koyi, 'The Textile and Clothing Industry in Zambia', p. 267.
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41. Kaplinsky and Morris, 'Do the Asian Drivers Undermine Export-Orientated Industrialization?'.
42. Kaplinsky, 'What Does the Rise of China Do for Industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa?', p. 12.
43. See, for example, L. Goering, 'China's Investment and Growing Clout in Africa Cause Concern', The Chicago Tribune (19 February 2006).
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48. Hart, Disabling Globalization.
49. Hart, Disabling Globalization.
50. See D. Gallie, In Search of the New Working Class: Automation and Social Integration within the Capitalist Enterprise (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978).
51. See D. Mitchell, 'There's No Such Thing as Culture: Towards a Reconceptualization of the Idea of Culture in Geography', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 20, 1 (March 1995), pp. 102-16.
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53. Fraser and Lungu, For Whom the Windfalls?, p. 8.
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55. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
56. B. Kapferer, Strategy and Transition in an African Factor (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1971).
57. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York, International Publishers, 1971).
58. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
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60. M. Larmer, '"The Hour Has Come at the Pit": The Mineworkers' Union of Zambia and the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy', 1982-1991, JSAS, 32, 2 (June 2006), pp. 293-312.
61. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
62. Larmer, Mineworkers of Zambia.
63. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
64. Larmer, 'Reaction & Resistance to Neo-Liberalism in Zambia'.
65. For examples see O. Bodibe, (ed.), The Extent and Effects of Casualisation in Southern Africa: Analysis of Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Johannesburg, Research Report for the Danish Federation of Workers, National Labour and Economic Development Institute, 2006).
66. and F. Miraftab, 'Neoliberalism and Casualization of Public Sector Services: The Case of Waste Collection Services in Cape Town, South Africa', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28, 4 (December 2004), pp. 874-92.
67. Lee, Raw Encounters, p. 4.
68. See the Government of Zambia's Report of the Public Accounts Committee for an example from Mulungushi.
69. Mumvuma, Sub-National Experiences of Civic Participation in Policy Making and Budgetary Processes.
70. Goering, 'China's Investment and Growing Clout in Africa Cause Concern'.
71. Larmer and Fraser, 'Of Cabbages and King Cobra'.
72. Kapferer, Strategy and Transition in an African Factory.
73. For contrasting rural and urban examples from Zambia and South Africa see N. Long, An Introduction to the Sociology of Rural Development (London, Tavistock, 1977).
74. and D. Scott, '"Creative Destruction": Early Modernist Planning in the South Durban Industrial Zone, South Africa', JSAS, 29, 1 (March 2003), pp. 235-59.
75. M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London, Penguin, 1977).
76. K. Grint, The Sociology of Work, 2nd edn (Padstow, Polity Press, 1998).
77. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
78. D. Potts, 'Counter-Urbanization on the Zambian Copperbelt? Interpretations and Implications', Urban Studies, 42, 4 (April 2005), pp. 583-609.
79. Many ex-workers thought the factory might reopen.
80. This contrasts with the mainly feminised labour forces in the globalised garment industry; see Hale and Shaw, 'Women Workers and the Promise of Ethical Trade in the Globalised Garment Industry'
81. S.D. Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia (Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 2006).
82. The Government of Zambia's Report of the Public Accounts Committee shows that in 2004 there were 1,819 employees of ZCMT (168 management, 650 permanent, 1,001 casual and contract), p. 76.
83. All approximate US Dollar values calculated using 2006 exchange rates.
84. Wright, 'Factory Daughters and Chinese Modernity'.
85. Ministry of Defence, Zambia, Report of Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee for Labour Reduction at Zambia-China Mulungushi Textiles (JV) Ltd. (ZCMT) (Government Printers, Lusaka, 2007), p. 1.
86. Jesuit College for Theological Reflection, The JCTR Basic Needs Basket: A Tool For Action by Trade Unions (Jesuit College for Theological Reflection, Lusaka, 2006) [Accessed 13 August 2009], http://www.jctr.org.zm/downloads/bnbunion.pdf
87. D. Harvey, Limits to Capital (Oxford, Verso, 2006).
88. Jesuit College for Theological Reflection, The JCTR Basic Needs Basket.
89. J. Pfeiffer, S. Gloyd and L. Ramirez Li, 'Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Child Growth in Mozambique: An Ethnographic Case-Control Study', Social Science & Medicine, 53 (2001), pp. 83-97.
90. B.M. Kazimbaya-Senkwe, 'Home Based Enterprises in a Period of Economic Restructuring in Zambia', in K.T. Hansen and M. Vaa, Reconsidering Informality: Perspectives from Urban Africa (Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004).
91. This is a widespread phenomenon in Zambia, as in other southern and sub-Saharan African countries, as prominently in recent urban literature, see for example C. Rakodi (ed.), The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and Management of its Large Cities (Tokyo & New York, United Nations University Press, 1997).
92. A. Simone and A. Abouhani (eds), Urban Africa: Changing Contours of Survival in the City (Dakar, London and Pretoria, CODESRIA, Zed Books and UNISA Press, 2005).
93. and D.F. Bryceson and D. Potts (eds), African Urban Economies (Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
94. See, for example, M. Burawoy, 'The Functions and Reproduction of Migrant Labour: Comparative Material from Southern Africa and the United States', The American Journal of Sociology, 81, 5 (March 1976), pp. 1,050-87.
95. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
96. H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1974).
97. See, for example, Gramsci's discussion on Fordism in The Prison Notebooks.
98. Larmer, Mineworkers in Zambia.
99. Fraser and Lungu, For Whom the Windfalls?
100. Kaplinsky, 'What Does the Rise of China Do for Industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa?'.
101. See Lee, Raw Encounters.
102. D. Haglund, 'Regulating FDI in Weak African States: A Case Study of Chinese Copper Mining in Zambia', The Journal of Modern African Studies, 46, 4 (December 2008), pp. 547-75.
103. Labour reforms in the Zambian mining industry have been discussed by Fraser and Lungu in For Whom the Windfalls? Bodibe gives case study examples from Southern Africa in The Extent and Effects of Casualisation in Southern Africa, and, amongst countless other sources, D. Harvey, provides a popular account in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005).
104. Y. Yang and C. Zhong, 'China's Textile and Clothing Exports in a Changing World Economy', The Developing Economies, 36, 1 (1998), pp. 3-23.
105. In Wright's study: 'Factory Daughters and Chinese Modernity', she argues Chinese draconian disciplinary measures of control are influenced by Confucian cultural expectations.
106. Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
107. Marx and Engels said the worker: '... becomes an appendage of the machine' (K. Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition (London, Verso, 1998 [1848]) p. 43), and Braverman suggests industries '... treat the workers themselves as machines'. These passages were clearly echoed in the words of the production supervisor.
108. Fraser and Lungu, For whom the Windfalls?
109. Larmer, 'The Hour has Come at the Pit'.
110. Harvey, Limits to Capital.
111. Yang and Zhong, 'China's Textile and Clothing Exports in a Changing World Economy'.
112. Grint, The Sociology of Work.
113. Gallie, In Search of the New Working Class.
114. Lee, Raw Encounters, p. 8.
115. Haglund, 'Regulating FDI in Weak African States'.
116. Government of Zambia, Report of the Public Accounts Committee.
117. Hart, Disabling Globalisation.
118. Lee, Raw Encounters, p. 7.
119. Ibid., p. 7.
120. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
121. Hart, Disabling Globalization, p. 30.
122. S. Hall, 'Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance', in Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism (Paris, UNESCO, 1980), p. 341.
123. M. Burawoy, The Colour of Class on the Copper Mines: From African Advancement to Zambianization (Manchester, Manchester University Press. 1972).
124. Larmer, 'The Hour Has Come at the Pit'.
125. Gibbs, 'Union Boys in Caps Leading Factory Girls Astray?'.
126. Hart, Disabling Globalisation.
127. However, a major caveat here is that this fieldwork did not afford an opportunity to undertake the type of rich exploration of how exploitation in the factory is linked to the gendered reproduction of labour that can be found in Hart's work. A long-serving Zambian production supervisor did discuss how there had been a greater proportion of female machine operators in the Zambian-era, but said Chinese managers employed females or males to perform these roles. This contrasts greatly with the feminised Chinese labour systems documented by Wright, 'Factory Daughters and Chinese Modernity', and prevalent worldwide in the garment industry - see Hale and Shaw, 'Women Workers and the Promise of Ethical Trade in the Globalised Garment Industry'.
128. Government of Zambia, The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act, Statutory Instrument No. 56 of 2006, Laws, 15, 276.
129. Larmer and Fraser, 'Of Cabbages and King Cobra'.
130. 108 For instance, one casual employee's wage slip showed deductions of K164,923 from a K268,000 salary, made for 'Absentism [absenteeism]' despite not missing any shifts.
131. The Africa Business website (2007), cites Che Ming as saying this, albeit without a direct quotation, in the article: 'Chinese Textile Firm in Zambia Having Cash Flow Problems' (3 January 2007), http://africabusiness. wordpress.com/2007/01/03/chinese-textile-firm-in-zambia-having-cash-flow-problems/ [Accessed 26 August 2008.]
132. Kaplinsky, 'What Does the Rise of China Do for Industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa?
133. Muwowo, the Mulungushi Cotton Supervisor, and several interviewees, thought the Mulungushi textile factory may be reopened by Qingdao in the future.
134. Sub-National Experiences of Civic Participation in Policy Making and Budgetary Processes.
135. D. Guerrero and F. Manji, 'Introduction: China's New Role in Africa and the South', in D. Guerrero and F. Manji (eds), China's New Role in Africa and the South (Oxford, Fahamu, 2008).
136. 114 There was also a serious incident that reportedly occurred in 2006. A truckload of ginned cotton leaving Mulungushi Cotton had large quantities of cash (in US dollars) and ZCMT company documents concealed within it. A Zambian employee informed local authorities and police stopped the vehicle, discovered the smuggled cargo and impounded the truck. Chinese managers reported this to their embassy, who petitioned the Zambian Government, which subsequently ordered the local police to release the vehicle, money and documents. It is alleged by interviewees that this decision was made by the MMD Government in order to maintain their close relationship with the Chinese government.
137. Gibbs, 'Union Boys in Caps Leading Factory Girls Astray?'.
138. See Larmer's discussion in Reaction & Resistance to Neo-Liberalism in Zambia.
139. In Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity.
140. Hart, Disabling Globalization.
141. Harvey, Limits to Capital.
142. Wright, 'Factory Daughters and Chinese Modernity', p. 300.
143. Fraser and Lungu, For Whom the Windfalls?
144. 'AGOA, Lesotho's 'Clothing Miracle' & the Politics of Sweatshops', p. 320.
145. It is evident that there is a great need for protection of Chinese labour against unbridled capitalism. See L. Orlan and L. Jonty, 'Progressive Labour Policy, Ageing Marxism and Unrepentant Early Capitalism in the Chinese Industrial Revolution', Business Ethics, A European Review, 10, 2 (April 2001), pp. 97-107.