6 Human Resource Managers: Mediating Capital and Labour

In comparison, HR management in the mining sector today is inevitably organised on a company level and therefore involves much smaller bureaucracies. HR managers often move from one company to another, with only a few building a career in a single company. New private companies vary in size, with the largest having almost 7,000 direct employees (Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia), but most range from 1,000 to 2,000 workers. Nevertheless, while they oversee smaller teams, HR managers in the new mining projects have responsibilities that would previously have been carried out by the parastatals’ centralised centres. These include recruiting workers, calculating wages, negotiating with trade unions and making organisational development plans.

Beyond the change in company structure and scale, as we outlined in Chapter 1, many labour practices that have been put in place by mining companies on both sides of the border since privatisation break with those upheld by Gécamines and ZCCM. In line with worldwide trends in the mining sector, new companies tend to be more capital-intensive, have a greater focus on their core business of mining and ore processing, and, especially in the case of Western multinationals, adapt the size of their operations to variations in the copper prices. As a result, they hire fewer workers, whom they prefer to pay in cash rather than through the provision of benefits in kind, such as housing or educational facilities. New investors also do not hesitate to cut labour costs or organise mass layoffs for economic reasons. In both countries, but especially in Zambia, the expansion of outsourcing has also meant an increase in employment by foreign and local contractor companies rather than direct employment in the mines. The position of HR managers in Congo and Zambia’s copper-mining sector must be understood amidst the emergence of this neoliberal labour regime: they represent foreign companies that seek to cut labour costs in a region marked by the legacy of industrial paternalism during much of the twentieth century.

Generally speaking, HR managers are middle managers; professionals who are situated, both at work and in wider society, in an intermediate position between the owners of capital and much of the wage labour force (Peschanski 1985; Azambuja and Islam 2019). Literature on the sociology of work and organisational forms has historically highlighted the difficult position of managers in the middle (Dalton 1959; Jackall 1988; Kunda 1992; Watson 1994; Mills 2002; Whyte 2013). Recent work has additionally emphasised the increasing pressure facing these professionals due to frequent corporate restructuring. More qualitative and ethnographic studies of work are only now beginning to consider the human consequences of organisational changes, including downsizing, de-layering of hierarchies, outsourcing and the removal of employee entitlements, that have affected transnational corporations around the world, including in the mining sector (Barley and Kunda 2001; Hassard, McCann and Morris 2007, 2009; Foster et al. 2019). Accordingly, more attention is being paid to the roles of middle managers, the coordinating and mediating functions they fulfil, and the emotional labour involved in their job.

In their ethnography of a Brazilian accounting firm, for instance, Azambuja and Islam (2019) depict how middle managers coordinate between different parts of an organisation with conflicting roles and responsibilities. Depending on their relationship with top management, these managers can be ‘boundary subjects’, that is, ‘agential and reflexive mediators between social positions’ or ‘boundary objects’, ‘interfacing and coordinating devices’ (Azambuja and Islam 2019: 535). This ‘boundary work’ is a theme that runs through our study of HR managers as individuals situated as intermediaries between top management, the union and the workforce, as well as government and regulatory bodies. While charged with fulfilling certain responsibilities by management, HR managers’ very position demands proficiency in managing relations across institutional and hierarchical boundaries. As boundary subjects, HR managers have space to act as brokers, mediating between different groups within ‘a narrow band of flexibility’ (James 2011: 335) to creatively shape outcomes; at other times, they are marginalised, have little room for manoeuvre, and are given the role of implementing policies over which they have little control.

As Jacoby (2007) argues, corporations are riven by struggles, both over the distribution of resources amongst different groups within the firm and ‘internecine battles over which business unit or functional areas will dominate executive decisions’ (Jacoby 2007: 3), a dynamic Welker (2014) captures in her ethnography of a mining company in Indonesia during the 2000s. HR departments are amongst the least powerful departments in mining corporations, and are often side-lined by production functions and finance, or maligned as self-important file pushers. However, like departments tasked with CSR or community development projects (see Jacoby 2007: 2; Welker 2014: 41), their profile rises in times of trouble, when their staff’s expertise and knowledge becomes integral to solving a crisis or adjusting to conditions like increased unionisation or regulatory change. This position as problem-solvers in the middle, however, also risks making them the focus of blame and frustration from both above and below.

The HR managers we interviewed were empowered by their employers’ need for their knowledge of and ability to navigate national institutions, particularly their legal expertise, their connections in various state administrations, and their capacity to act as mediators with political authorities. At the same time, HR managers owed their position of command to the often precarious trust of mainly expatriate executive teams. In the rest of this chapter, we examine how HR managers operated within the band of flexibility created by these opportunities and constraints as well as how they experienced the pressures of their job. We begin by examining the professional backgrounds of HR managers and the paths that led them to their positions as managers in the mining sector. We then look at the work they do within companies to ensure ‘harmonious’ industrial relations, focusing on their role as mediator within the company and their navigation of the micropolitics of work. Finally, we examine HR managers’ work within a broader social and political arena, beyond the limits of the company. By doing so, we hope to shed more light on how mining capitalism becomes embedded in local contexts and, most especially, the people who are hired to manage that process.

The gender profile differs on either side of the border, echoing dynamics discussed by Pugliese and Musonda in Chapter 3. In Congo, we found that the top HR managers were male, with only one exception: a woman who had been appointed by Gécamines as HR manager in a joint venture project with a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise (SOE). According to interviewees in Congo, if most HR managers are men, this is because the job requires managers to exercise authority over the workers, who are also predominantly men. Men, they explained, are more prepared to exercise such authority and are ascribed more legitimacy in the eyes of workers. In Zambia, however, both at junior and more senior ranks, women work as HR managers. At the time of our research, at the two largest mines in Copperbelt Province, women held the top HR positions: the chief services officer at Mopani Copper Mines and the vice-president of human resources at Konkola Copper Mines. Senior women working in HR in mining tend to have one of two profiles: they either entered HR through personnel management or education and training – including working as a teacher at a mine school – during the ZCCM era, or pursued a career as a consultant for multinational firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG before taking on HR directorships at parastatals or multinational firms in Zambia.

There are three typical career paths or modes of access to the position of HR manager. First, the longest-serving HR managers built their careers in Gécamines and ZCCM before being reappointed by the new investors. When existing mines were privatised, the experience and knowledge of already employed HR personnel was important for the transfer to new management. In Zambia, for instance, new owners established recognition agreements with the same mineworkers’ union and committed to taking non-unionised employees on the same conditions of service. The legacy of years of bargaining between ZCCM and the union and existing personnel officers’ relations with the union were a useful inheritance for new investors interested in stable industrial relations (Bota 2001: 21). Even in greenfield projects or mines that have changed investors since privatisation, HR managers sometimes have experience from working at ZCCM or Gécamines, or were mentored by former ZCCM or Gécamines managers at other mines.

In Congo meanwhile, an additional dynamic is at play due to the lingering power of the SOE Gécamines. Most mining projects are based on joint venture agreements, which provide that appointments to certain managerial positions are the prerogative of Gécamines. Generally, Gécamines management identifies a candidate for a joint venture project from among its senior managers who are close to the end of their careers, who is then hired under a new contract by the joint venture. For example, one such manager, Mark, now over sixty years old, spent most of his career with Gécamines. In 2015, while he was the administrative manager of Gécamines’ corporate offices in Likasi, he was offered the position of HR manager for a new project in Lubumbashi. Since the new position came with a raise, he accepted the job offer with enthusiasm, considering it a golden parachute that would allow him to save some money before retirement.

Second, a small number of the HR managers we interviewed had been recruited by mining companies shortly after graduating from university, sometimes on graduate training programmes, and progressively rose to the position of HR manager in the organisation. For HR managers interviewed in Congo, whether they had studied in Congo or abroad, none had been trained in HR but in another subject, such as law, economics or sociology. In Zambia, managers also held degrees from a range of disciplines, mainly in the social sciences, computer science or information systems, business or public administration. The background of HR managers below the top rank depends partly on the prerogatives of the senior HR staff. For one major underground mine in the Zambian copperbelt, for instance, a former senior recruitment manager, himself a graduate in computer science, explained he preferred computer science graduates for their discipline and commitment to problem-solving. As information technology and systems have become more central to HR departments, these skills are in in particular demand.

HR has developed as an area of study in its own right since the 1990s and is commonly offered at universities and colleges in both countries. In Congo, it was only just beginning to become popular at the time of the research; to the present day, employees with a degree in HR remain unusual in the mining sector. None of the HR managers whom one of the authors, Benjamin Rubbers, met had received specialised training on their job in a Congolese higher education institution. In Zambia, however, one of the top managers at a greenfield mine site had studied HR for his undergraduate degree and two others had continued to study HR at master’s level, either through company sponsorship at South African or British universities, or through cheaper online options. Amongst more junior HR professionals in Zambia, it was more common to find people who had studied HR at undergraduate level; Evelyn Hone, a college in Lusaka known for its business courses, reported that a greenfield mine in North-Western Province had the previous year requested and hired eight of their HR graduates. In both countries, HR managers actively sought to build their CVs by continuing to study and attend trainings taught by Congolese or Zambian experts in labour law or HR. These trainings are organised by each country’s national employers’ association or, in Zambia, by ZIHRM. Conscious of gaps in their training and knowledge and the rising professionalisation of HR management, several interviewees in both countries disclosed their plans to secure a master’s degree in HR management from an institution in South Africa, Europe or the United States.

Third, for top positions in HR management and executive positions, such as vice-president or chief services officer positions, if people have not built careers in ZCCM or Gécamines, they often have executive management experience in other multinational or major parastatal companies before being recruited or headhunted. In particular, those who built their careers during or after the liberalisation of the economy in both countries move from post to post and company to company, developing relationships with other business and political elites and building their profiles on the labour market. This increases their chances of being contacted by companies or headhunting agencies that find their CV on professional websites. In addition, in Congo, the experience of working in different companies also allows managers to improve their English, a skill necessary for working with most expatriate executives and taken for granted in professional circles in Zambia, where the official language is English.

Take for instance the career of Christopher, a Congolese HR manager in his late forties. After obtaining a degree in management mathematics, he was recruited by the chairman of the national railway company, first as the deputy manager of his private farm, and then as his secretary in the SOE. It was in this capacity that he first became familiar with HR management. In 2005, Christopher was recommended by a former schoolmate for a position as HR manager for a new mining project in Kolwezi. This was a formative moment in his career, he told us, as he was forced to learn the trade on the job, as a ‘self-taught man’. Since then, he has strengthened this experience by working as HR manager for three other multinational companies. In 2014, he was unemployed for a few months but was then contacted by a headhunting agency based in London about a job opportunity as HR manager at another mining company near Lubumbashi. This is the job he currently holds.

No matter their degree or if they have worked in other sectors, when it comes to the practical work of HR management, the mining sector presents new challenges and managers learn many skills on the job. Organisational skills central to personnel management – mastering the rules and procedures for recruitment, the calculation of wages, disciplinary actions, dismissals, and communication and negotiation with trade unions – remain crucial and often involve the use of IT tools. HR managers also have to familiarise themselves with labour law covering employment contracts and relations with trade unions, and ensure their company follows the law; this is especially important in cases of dismissals or mass layoffs, to avoid former employees taking legal action. HR managers often have to appear in court to explain their companies’ actions and at times represent their company. Finally, the most senior HR managers have to sit at the top table and, at some companies, take part in organisational development and planning.

Beyond all of this, HR managers have to master a range of social and cultural skills needed to tactfully manage the contradictory interests of executives, union representatives, workers and local state authorities. In particular, as senior as they may be in the HR hierarchy, the most successful managers emphasised that to do their job well, they had to know how to relate to workers working in the pit and at the rock face. To examine the work involved in this, we turn to the role of HR managers in managing industrial relations within the company.

In Congo in particular, far from seeing trade unions as militant organisations struggling against capital, HR managers speak of unions as the company’s ‘partners’ who can contribute to industrial peace. The unions themselves tend to emphasise their ‘responsibility’ as facilitators between capital and labour (see Chapter 4). For instance, there is nothing surprising to find on a calendar printed by the Alliance des Travailleurs Avertis et Consciencieux [Alliance of Informed and Conscientious Workers] union the slogan: ‘Soyons performants et compétitifs. Produisons pour mieux revendiquer’ [Let us be efficient and competitive. We must produce to make more claims’]. This way of thinking about trade unionism can be traced back to the Mobutu regime and the late colonial era (Poupart 1960; Banza n.d.; Mbili Kwa Mbili 1986). Since then, their role has primarily been to ‘educate the working class’. To this day, both HR managers and union representatives continue to use this expression to mean sensitising unskilled workers to the requirements of industrial work and preventing the spread of false rumours amongst them. In their view, it is when they fail in fulfilling this mission that ‘uneducated’ workers go on strike.

In Zambia as well, management has a strong hand when it comes to dealing with unions. It is almost impossible to organise a legal strike in Zambia, and while militant workers still sometimes organise wildcat strikes or go-slows, these put workers at risk of being fired and so are usually discouraged by unions (Lee 2017: 81–83; Uzar 2017; McNamara 2021). Moreover, mines have fragmented their labour forces by contracting out work, causing membership to fall and decreasing trade unions’ negotiation power and financial capacity. As they struggle to survive these challenges, unions remain dependent on mining companies in Zambia: they sell goods to workers on credit on company property and offer workers loans which are paid back through payroll in some mines, making the arrangement dependent on HR.2 For a recent discussion between researchers and Zambian mining union leaders about the roles and responsibilities of trade unions in a neoliberal economy, see the blogpost by Thomas McNamara and James Musonda (2019), and the reply by George S. Mumba (2019), General Secretary of the Mineworkers Union of Zambia. On a daily basis, union representatives are also dependent on their relationships with HR managers when pleading for clemency in disciplinary cases. Thus, in the (usually) annual negotiations over wages and conditions of service, HR managers are much better positioned to be able to convincingly argue the company’s case, to obfuscate, and convince union branch executives that a minimal increase is all the company can afford and in the interest of all (see Chapter 5). The environment works to discipline branch union leaders, a dynamic one HR manager alluded to when remarking that the last decade had ‘seen us move from confrontational union leaders to leaders that are… enlightened’.

However, focusing on the weakness of the unions in contemporary industrial relations hides the ongoing work that secures control over the workforce and maintains ‘industrial peace’. What start as specific disagreements about conditions of service can spiral out of control if not managed well by HR professionals. Towards the end of our research in Zambia, a trade unionist remarked that the new HR manager at a mine in North-Western Province had ignored workers’ demands for buses to take them home to Copperbelt Province, which led to riots. The trade unionist attributed the trouble to the fact that the HR manager was doing a poor job of ‘listening’ to the union. There is an art to industrial relations, old hands in HR management in the mines explained, intimating what they understand to be the typical psychology of miners, using phrases like ‘a miner is a miner’ or ‘you know miners’. As one experienced HR manager put it, miners can feel ‘they are really being used as tools’, and to be effective, a manager must ‘make them feel they are actually the most important capital in a company’ while also maintaining his or her authority. They invoked a trope of a manual labourer as a ‘simple person’, averse to change and ‘looking for fairness’, who wants managers to ‘walk the talk’. In particular, many HR managers emphasised the importance of appearing fair; they were aware that workers are watching their behaviour. They underlined the significance of small gestures, such as how they welcomed people to their offices, and the need to prevent accusations of favouritism; for one junior manager living on site at a remote mine, for instance, this meant limiting whom she allowed to visit her home.

Despite the importance of their work, the space given to HR managers to do their job varies, recalling Azambuja and Islam’s (2019) distinction between managers as boundary subjects with space to build relationships and coalitions versus managers as boundary objects alienated from organisational decision-making. A range of factors matter: the size of the company, its experience in the mining sector and in Central Africa, the stage of the project, as well as the personality and management style of the top executive team, especially the general manager. In small mines and contractor companies, and large mining projects in the development phase, HR managers are usually employed as multipurpose local assistants who deal with all legal, administrative and social aspects of personnel management. As these projects are often autocratically managed by an expatriate general manager for whom personnel management is the least of his concerns, it is in these situations that violations of labour laws such as a lack of work contracts, unfair dismissals, or the refusal to recognise unions, commonly occur. No matter how skilful HR managers are, in the face of their boss’s decisions, they cannot do much except attempt to find retroactive solutions to problems. As mining projects develop, however, and begin to have a larger permanent staff, HR managers have the opportunity to delegate responsibilities such as recruitment, discipline and industrial relations, and to establish better procedures for managing the HR function. Generally speaking, then, as midsized and large companies in the production phase have established rules and procedures in compliance with the law, they have much better organised HR management apparatuses than smaller companies, and HR managers can do their work with more ease.

In general, senior HR managers formally report directly to the general manager, have a seat on the board of the heads of department, and, in some cases, occasionally participate in meetings with the HR team at the headquarters of the parent mining company or majority joint venture partner. However, this does not mean they are considered full members of the senior management team. Even in better organised companies, HR departments are small, considered to be of minor importance, and often struggle to have their voices heard as priority is given to the needs of departments involved in production. The HR manager’s ‘band of flexibility’ to mediate and broker can thus be limited as the heads of other departments tend to supervise their own staff and recruit, promote, or dismiss workers independently, relying on the HR department only as an implementation service. The power of the HR manager to intervene in or manage these processes depends on the prerogatives that a project’s general manager is willing to give him or her.

Moreover, the power of HR managers vis-a-vis foreign or expatriate executive staff directly recruited by the operating company varies. Generally, in a de facto recreation of the colonial-era colour bar in the mines, national HR managers have limited power over the members of what often effectively becomes a sort of higher caste – unless foreign managers commit a serious offense against a Zambian or Congolese worker which is subject to disciplinary action by the HR department. As mentioned in the opening to this chapter, in many companies, including Western, Chinese and Indian mining companies operating on both sides of the border, an expatriate is appointed to supervise, sometimes informally, the Zambian or Congolese HR manager’s work. The latter can find himself in a situation analogous to that of the black personnel officer described by Burawoy (1972) during Zambianisation in the 1960s, promoted to a senior position while simultaneously being undermined by having responsibilities taken away from him. In some mines, it is the expatriate supervisor, known by titles varying from consultant to support services or organisational development officer (ODO), who reports to the project’s general manager, sits on the board of the heads of departments, and participates in strategic meetings at headquarters abroad. In other companies, the HR manager’s powers are circumscribed in more informal ways. As described by a former HR manager in a Chinese company in Zambia, following meetings including Zambian managers, Chinese managers would simply review the decisions made amongst themselves while they had dinner together in camp, and return in subsequent meetings to pronounce decisions contrary to those previously decided with Zambian staff.

Thus, although Zambian and Congolese HR managers may have the title of a senior manager, and receive a relatively high salary, their actual role may be largely reduced to bureaucratic personnel administration and legal advice. This is, of course, a frustrating experience for managers who feel they are capable of contributing much more, as one Congolese manager supervised by an ODO complained:

This situation is exacerbated by the way expatriate managers at mine sites usually occupy a social world from which Zambian and Congolese managers tend to be excluded – divisions that map onto deep legacies of colonialism and structural racism. Expatriate managers usually speak the same language, share interests, have similar life trajectories and are part of overlapping transnational social networks. Congolese and Zambian HR managers are, by contrast, a priori subjected to suspicion: are they able to do the job? Do they draw personal profits from their position? Are they on the employer’s or the workers’ side? Mistrust often lingers near the surface. When one author, Emma Lochery, explained her research questions to two white expatriate managers at a mine in Zambia, they immediately expressed frustration with HR staff: ‘My challenge is getting people hired who have not paid a lot of money to HR managers. There are a few good staff, but time and time again, I find the people who have been hired are someone’s brother or cousin…’ The other manager replied that his strategy was to set up a committee and choose the candidate and then instruct HR to hire that person, or alternatively to run an internship scheme to judge candidates on their performance before offering them jobs. Either way, they bypassed the HR department. Being a senior Congolese or Zambian HR manager in this situation requires a great deal of skill and confidence; it may bring social prestige but can sometimes prove an alienating experience.

However, the ways in which HR managers are framed and positioned politically differs between the two countries. Zambia is a less populous country, with a smaller, more tightly networked elite. While trade unionists have historically been more prominent in the country’s politics, there are also politicians with experience working or consulting in industrial relations or HR. The reverse relationship between politics and HR management is also important for some companies. It is helpful for companies if their senior HR manager, or another national executive manager, has links to the upper echelons of government.

The political framing of HR managers in Zambia is also affected by the significance of employment conditions as a political issue discussed not just locally, but at the national level. Mining communities have historically been integral to catalysing political change (Larmer 2006), and Copperbelt Province remains a significant electoral constituency, seen as a bellwether of political change. Concerns over the employment practices of foreign investors became an especially prominent political issue from the 2000s as public anger grew over austerity measures, increased unemployment, and the tax breaks and other benefits given to foreign-owned mining companies. As the Patriotic Front emerged with its slogan ‘Zambia for Zambians’, its leader Michael Sata focused his attention on the concerns of the urban working class and the unemployed, especially lambasting working conditions in Chinese-owned mining companies (Fraser 2010). In this context, the Zambian government made policy statements framing Zambian HR managers as potential bulwarks against the erosion of workers’ rights. According to this line of thought, Zambian HR professionals would ensure that employment law is properly applied, thereby protecting workers’ rights. After the Patriotic Front victory in 2011 in particular, minister of labour Fackson Shamenda called on HR managers to ‘stand their ground’ and correctly interpret labour laws for their employers. He portrayed HR managers as the crucial interface between management and workers, in a position to facilitate social dialogue, increase productivity, and by implication, national development (Lusaka Times 2013b). This discourse points to the high social status accorded HR managers and the corresponding opportunities for social and professional advancement. However, it also highlights the risks of being caught between competing pressures from a political economy of precarious employment and a government struggling to strengthen its regulatory power.

In Congo, by contrast, mining companies generally avoid hiring national executive managers with strong political connections. Their expatriate representatives – a shareholder, the project general manager, or an expatriate with long-standing experience in the country – prefer to make contact directly with influential political leaders and to protect the management of their business from political interference (see Rubbers 2009). If a position is offered to a politician, it is an honorary position as adviser or board member, with no real power over the functioning of the company. In only one case, we found that the position of HR manager was given to a member of the entourage of the presidency. But this occurred at the start of short-lived project funded by an infamous businessman with no experience in mining. As soon as the project was bought out by a mining company, the HR manager was replaced by senior managers from Gécamines.

Furthermore, the Congolese national government has not made policy statements about the protective role of HR managers in the mining sector, perhaps because of Gécamines’ presence as a joint venture partner, and because the law is clear that HR managers must be Congolese. Policy statements emphasise rather the role of the labour inspector, who carries out control visits in mining companies and fines the employer in case of violation of the law. In Congo, political pressure is exerted more informally, at a more local level, in favour of smaller constituencies: it is the provincial authorities, the local ethnic associations or the customary chiefs who press HR managers to look after the interests of people considered autochthonous to the province, the tribe or the chiefdom. Such pressures are often intense. Far from only playing on the HR managers’ loyalty to an imagined community, they may involve protests in front of the company, letters of complaint to management, or phone calls from political authorities that threaten the HR manager’s job.

Besides these differences, however, in both countries HR managers’ daily work and the challenges they face are shaped by the fact they are gatekeepers to the mine. They are in a position to affect the distribution of jobs and can face an array of requests and threats. In Zambia and Congo, jobs remain scarce while the number of higher education graduates constantly increases, and mining companies receive a large number of applications for each vacancy. Though it is organised slightly differently at each mining company, top-ranking HR managers oversee recruitment and are the main point of contact for applicants. Candidates send application files to the HR department which, at some mines, is responsible also for selecting the candidates who will make it to the second stage of the recruitment process, the tests and the interview. Although the head of the recruiting department makes the final choice, HR managers have the power to put CVs on top of the pile, making them prominent targets for recommendations especially since, while they are among the most senior Zambian and Congolese managers in the company, their phone numbers are easy to find, and they are able to gauge the importance of the candidate’s sponsors.

The HR managers encountered during the research constantly fielded recommendations from all sides: relatives, neighbours, colleagues, church members, friends from university, customary chiefs, political parties and various state authorities, from the local to the national level. Faced with these multiple requests, their strategy was to routinely answer that the recommended candidate’s CV would be taken into consideration and that the sponsor would be informed of the application’s outcome. Even if they do not take recommendations into account, it is essential for HR managers to show goodwill to their interlocutor. To explicitly ignore recommendations would unnecessarily expose themselves to criticism, and, especially in Congo, potential threats from powerful people.

Indeed, in Congo, risks related to recruitment are higher for HR managers, especially those who are not originaires, autochthons of the territory or the province where the mine site is located. Most mining companies established in remote rural areas in both Zambia and Congo adopt ‘local content’ policies within the framework of their CSR programmes – another innovation that contrasts with the policies of ZCCM and Gécamines. In Congo, HR managers overseeing recruitment are expected to give priority to candidates from local communities and to pay particular attention to recommendations from local power figures. Even though this rule is only followed for unskilled jobs, which are rather limited in number once mining projects are in the production phase, HR managers who are not originaires are swiftly accused of favouring those from their own tribe or province to the detriment of local communities. With the support of customary chiefs, local ethnic associations such as Sempya (Bemba) or Lwanzo lwa Mikuba (Sanga) in Congo do not hesitate to send letters to the company to protest or ask for the support of the provincial authorities in demanding the dismissal of the HR manager. Although these efforts rarely achieve their goals, in Congo they lead mining companies to prefer to hire a candidate from the appropriate tribe or province when the HR manager position is vacant, in the hope of avoiding unnecessary tension with local communities.

In Zambia, the local political dynamics have less impact on the companies’ choice of HR manager. The three large mines in North-Western Province have local recruitment systems for unskilled jobs which include databases developed in conjunction with local chiefs. However, pressure from local chiefdoms is often blunted by the compromised position of chiefs who, after facilitating mining investment by granting communal land to mining companies, are often accused of looking after their own personal and family interests rather than those of the wider community (Negi 2010; Kapesa 2019). Moreover, as mining projects move from the construction to the production phase and the available number of unskilled jobs falls, mining companies’ interaction with chiefs is increasingly channelled through community development departments.

Beyond pressures over the distribution of jobs, however, the new political economy of precarious employment has consequences for HR managers because they oversee dismissals and retrenchments. HR managers are responsible for charging and dismissing workers guilty of misconduct as well as for collating the list of those who will be impacted by a mass layoff. Although the number of dismissals for disciplinary reasons should not be overestimated, the number of punishable behaviours, the increased punishment for such behaviours, and the inflexible attitude of management contribute to fuelling workers’ sense of precariousness. HR managers are suspected to have discretion in these procedures and are subjected to multiple pressures from within and outside the company. Those who fear losing their jobs do not hesitate to ask state authorities to exert pressure on the HR manager. While these pressures are present across many sectors, the numbers of workers, the foreign status of executive managers and the political prominence of the mining sector make it particularly likely that workers and trade unions will call for state intervention (see Chapter 5).

The challenge of HR managers’ position at the interface between management and workers especially comes into focus during restructuring and ‘rationalisation’ exercises, when mining companies cut their workforces through mass layoffs, voluntary departure programmes, or technical leave procedures. These cuts have become more common since the sharp fall and then recovery of copper prices in 2008–09 following the global financial crisis, and the slower decline from 2011 into 2016. In Zambia, for instance, employment numbers rose as new investors pumped capital into the mines through the mid-2000s, from less than 20,000 workers in 2003, to around 40,000 in the mid-2000s. As the copper price rose to over US$ 8,000 per tonne in mid-2008, 63,151 people were employed in Zambia’s mining sector (Fraser and Lungu 2007; Matenga 2010: 2). Once copper prices fell however, companies closed facilities, put mines on care and maintenance and carried out retrenchments: between June 2008 and May 2009 over 30 per cent of the labour force lost their jobs. The majority (62 per cent) of these job losses were from contractor companies, but the mining companies also retrenched over 7,300 direct employees (Matenga 2010). These job losses, and those that continue to occur periodically on both sides of the border, contrast greatly with the stability of employment provided by Gécamines and ZCCM in the past. As described in Chapter 2, while some workers may be rehired, in Zambia in particular many companies have increasingly shifted their labour force from directly to indirectly employed workers through contractor companies.

For HR managers, managing these complex and politically sensitive situations and organising and implementing restructuring is difficult and stressful. First, HR managers must often impose the decisions of management on workers. As they are confronted by similar difficulties – anxiety over the precarity of their own jobs, cost of living and family pressure, they are, unlike many expatriates, personally aware of the consequences these decisions have on workers’ everyday lives. Thus, their work of translation between divergent interests is particularly difficult on a personal level. While expatriate managers suspect them of being on the side of workers, the workers regard them as expatriate managers’ collaborators. As a result, they can end up isolated in the company. When a crisis occurs, such as a strike or a mass layoff, they may be the ones deemed responsible, especially if negotiations break down and the company turns to politicians and government officials to mediate between management and workers.

Lee (2017: 63, 146) has described how, in protests in Zambia, striking workers would hold placards calling for the dismissal of the Zambian HR manager. Similarly, both an HR manager and trade unionists in Zambia recounted the story of an HR manager at Lumwana Copper Mine in North-Western Province in 2015 who had to leave the site in a hurry after workers shut down the mine calling for his departure following a conflict over employee benefits. After government figures intervened, the general manager took responsibility for the policy changes which had been implemented as part of broader cost-cutting measures. Nevertheless, workers only agreed to return to work if the HR manager was dismissed. Protest actions calling for the dismissal of the HR manager also took place in several mines in Congo after the company decided to organise a mass layoff. In some cases, threats from retrenched workers led HR managers to take strong measures to protect themselves and their families. After some workers took their issues with the mining company out on his children, one HR manager decided to send them to school in South Africa, where they now live away from their parents. Another manager moved his family to Zambia after receiving a threatening letter.

At the same time, some viewed these difficult moments of change not only as a challenge but an opportunity to prove their skills and legitimise their position as a top-ranking manager, able to navigate relations with government and withstand the court of public opinion. In both Congo and Zambia, retrenchment is a costly and time-consuming exercise; companies are expected to notify unions and the labour officer a certain number of days before redundancies take place. According to these norms, mining companies should engage the ministry of labour, and sometimes, through negotiations with high officials in various national ministries, the number to be retrenched is reduced. Some HR managers took pride in the fact that they know how this political process works, are supported by their executive management team, and have good connections to enable them to help broker an agreement amongst partners. One of the professionally most successful young Zambian HR managers argued that those in his field can go even further and challenge norms around redundancy, ensuring companies have access to a more flexible workforce. Again, the position of HR managers remains ambivalent and dependent on their navigation of the boundary work that is inherent in their position.

To carry out their tasks as HR managers, the people we interviewed in Congo and Zambia used a range of legal, organisational and social skills that most had learned on the job while working for various mining companies. The boundary work carried out by HR managers requires them to interact strategically with a variety of actors: expatriate executives, union representatives, workers, state officials and politicians. Their job is to translate the specific and often contradictory interests of these different categories of actors and to find solutions that best benefit the company and its foreign shareholders. However, this work of mediation and brokerage often puts them in a difficult situation professionally and personally. While workers see them as collaborators in league with expatriate executives, the latter suspect them of drawing personal advantage from their position as the company’s gatekeepers. Marginalised by both national workers and expatriate executives, they often find themselves isolated in the middle of the firm’s social structure. This can have contradictory effects. On one hand, their power to effect change in the organisation can be limited by their position as a manager in the middle. On the other hand, when tensions rise over employment issues or industrial relations, they are at risk of being deemed responsible for the problems.

Beyond the company’s organisational limits, the boundary work performed by HR managers highlights in a new way the various political constellations that have taken shape around access to employment in mining companies across the Central African Copperbelt. Considering the work of HR managers highlights significant similarities on either side of the border. Although trade unions are much larger and better organised in Zambia, they have not shaped the labour policies of mining companies more successfully than Congolese trade unions (for a study of how they deal with the constraints imposed by new mining investors, see this book’s Chapters 4 and 5). Similarly, although Congolese labour inspectors have more formal powers than their counterparts in Zambia, their capacity to improve working conditions in the mining sector proves to be limited in practice, if only because employers can always appeal to political patrons to lift the fines levied by an overly punctilious labour inspector. As result, many small and midsized mining companies have deplorable working conditions without being troubled by the labour administration.

A significant difference between the two countries, however, is the way tensions over employment in the mining sector are expressed politically. As described above, in Zambia, the quality of employment in foreign-owned mining companies is a prominent issue, not just locally but also in national politics. Copperbelt Province has historically been important as an electoral constituency and a bellwether of political change. Moreover, mineworkers and their trade union, the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia (MUZ), have historically helped to drive political change in Zambia, particularly the fall of the one-party state under the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in 1991 and the rise of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (Larmer 2006). As the Patriotic Front emerged during the 2000s, tensions around the behaviour of foreign investors and casualisation of employment took centre stage politically. Government statements urged HR managers to enforce Zambian labour laws, while companies in turn threatened to carry out redundancies in order to exact concessions from government.

In Congo, the constituency of the towns of the copperbelt does not dominate relative to other, more populous, provinces. Employment in the mining sector has thus been more a regional issue in Congo. To be sure, this is true in the rural areas of both Congo and Zambia, where greenfield mining projects have to navigate pressures from local power figures to prioritise local ethnic groups in access to employment (Rubbers 2019; Negi 2010). However, claims based on autochthony are arguably stronger in Congo, where they have been fuelled by a process of decentralisation and the creation of new provinces in 2015 (Gobbers 2016, 2019; Englebert, Calderon and Jene 2018).

Finally, our analysis suggests that across the Central African Copperbelt, the band of flexibility in which HR managers operate varies depending on investor strategy and management styles, but also over time, most especially in the case of new projects or greenfield sites. In the early 2000s, when new mining projects were in the development phase, HR managers’ band of flexibility was relatively broad. Since foreign investors depended on them to recruit local workers, negotiate with trade unions, etc., they had considerable influence over the company’s labour policies and from the outside, they were largely viewed as the company’s gatekeepers. Everybody, including local power figures, went through them to get in touch with management or to access employment in the company. However, their band of flexibility was significantly reduced when mining projects entered the production phase, especially after the financial crisis in 2008. Indeed, HR managers have fewer and fewer jobs to distribute and, on the contrary, are increasingly asked to dismiss workers and cut labour costs. In addition, the parent company often seeks to take control of the organisational development of the mining project by imposing new organisational structures, tools and procedures from above. In some of these companies, the Congolese or Zambian HR manager is increasingly confined to bureaucratic tasks and legal advice while strategic decisions are taken by an expatriate manager who supervises his or her work. Nevertheless, it is the Zambian HR manager who is held responsible by workers, trade unions and local politicians for unpopular measures decided by management.

In a way, the HR manager in these mining companies is increasingly caught in a situation similar to that of the Zambian personnel manager described by Burawoy (1972; see also 2014) in the early 1970s, the target of blame and a symbol of frustration about ‘window-dressing Zambianisation’. The main difference, however, is that managers in the twenty-first century no longer navigate the power games typical of state paternalism but rather the micropolitics of a neoliberal labour regime where precarious work dominates. In this study, we have situated HR managers within this transformation, showing how they have played a crucial role as gatekeepers and mediators while operating in an increasingly narrow space of possibility.