Editorial: Kambwili’s Defence Of Workers

Chishimba Kambwili has warned Luanshya Copper Mines management to stop threatening closure of other units and intimidating its employees demanding salary increments.
“It appears that the investors who are coming in this country are taking advantage of the Zambian workers,” says Kambwili.
It is true; investors have been taking advantage of Zambian workers. But why? This is so because the Zambian workers have no one to defend their interests. Both the government and their own trade unions are prostituting themselves with the investors, leaving the workers with no meaningful protection or representation. It is politicians like Kambwili who have been getting contracts to supply this or that to investors. And at the same time, it is these politicians who are expected to speak for the workers when their interests clash with those of the investors. Today, even trade union leaders are doing business with investors; they are parasitic on investors to maintain their high lifestyles.
A workers’ government protects the workers. Only when the workers have such a government can investors respect them and improve their conditions of work. When this country had a government whose key leadership wasn’t in the pockets of investors, workers were protected and respected. “I despise anyone who despises a worker, just the same way as I despise any racialist. I repeat, I despise anyone who despises a worker, a labourer, in the same way as I despise the racialist,” thundered Dr Kenneth Kaunda at a political rally in Lusaka on April 11, 1965. And two months earlier on January 17, Dr Kaunda clearly spelt out the role of trade unions: “The responsibility of trade unionism is to see that there is a decent wage, a decent life for each member, and also to see that more people are employed in the country…”
The constitution of the ruling Patriotic Front states in Article four that “the party shall wage a relentless struggle against all domestic and international forces of reaction. It shall fight for the eradication of Capitalism, with its offshoots; poverty, with its offshoots of Hunger, Ignorance, Disease, Crime, Corruption and the exploitation of man by man”. And in Article 15, the party’s constitution further states that the obligation of a party member shall be “to be devoted to the Party, the State and the working class movement in the country” and “to fight against the exploitation of man by man”.

How can a government of a political party that commits itself to such ideals allow workers to be humiliated and exploited in this way?
The truth is we should forget everything that is in the Patriotic Front constitution because it is not followed. The Patriotic Front is not what it claims to be. Judge it by its deeds and not by its words. This is a political party that commits itself to socialism in its constitution but in practice, it is a party for the promotion of the principles of greed, vanity, corruption and exploitation of man by man. It is a party that promotes and defends the interests of investors and not those of workers. And in terms of economic independence, the Patriotic Front has taken this country backwards to the days of Cecil Rhodes whose company was the first coloniser of this territory and ruled it from 1891 to 1924. Our political independence is every day rendered meaningless by the Patriotic Front. We should not forget that political independence only serves as a key to the door of economic and social progress.
And if it doesn’t do that, its value diminishes. But we were warned by Dr Kaunda in 1967: “The art of colonisation, if it is to succeed, means a coloniser sees to it that the victim is not only colonised politically, but also economically and culturally. This being the case, the act of political independence forms but the first part of the process of decolonisation. We are now just starting on the second stage of it and it may not be possible for us to complete this process of decolonising the nation within our lifetime for it is a process that requires not only careful thought and planning but also a lot of material, human and otherwise, to bring it about. Freedom is meaningless without economic, social, scientific and cultural progress…But we will not purchase economic development at the cost of a new type of colonialism.
We are aware of neo-colonialism in many lands. In future, therefore, we shall welcome foreign capital as in the past. We remain committed to this policy for we need foreign capital in considerable amounts. All we ask our investors is the understanding that we welcome them as participants, and not controllers, of our economic development process.”
As long as the workers of this country do not wake up and realise that they have been betrayed by their political and trade union leaders, investors will continue to humiliate and exploit them mercilessly. The investors are not here for charity; they are here to maximise profits. And part of the process of maximizing profits is keeping the labour costs as low as possible. They have been running away from America and Europe where the labour costs are high. Today, Donald Trump has to use all sorts of threats to make American companies produce goods in America. Is it because they don’t like America? No, they love it. But it’s profits they are chasing; profits matter more to them than anything else.