Work resumes after unrest
09/03/2008 17:02 - (SA)
Lusaka - The construction of a Chinese copper smelter in Zambia will resume this week after days of unrest that led to the sacking of about 500 workers over labour disputes, the company has announced.
Company secretary Sun Chuanqi said the firm had reinstated 220 workers from the 500 originally dismissed for causing unrest at the company, whose property was destroyed in a protest over poor wages.
He said: "The situation has normalised.
"We expect to resume construction on Monday," adding that those workers that had been reinstated would remain so long as they did not cause any trouble.
The $200m copper smelter is being constructed in Zambia's mining town of Chambeshi, about 410km north of the capital.
Clashes between Zambian workers and their Chinese colleagues at the plant left two Zambians and a Chinese worker badly
injured last week.
Workers, who staged a similar work stoppage a month ago, said their monthly salaries amounted to a mere $50 a month and they complained of poor medical facilities.
Chinese investors in the southern African nation are often criticised for poor safety records.
This criticism grew after 2005, when 50 Zambian miners died in an explosion at a Chinese-owned copper mine at Chambeshi.
Copper is Zambia's major export earner and contributes more than half of the country's gross domestic product.
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