JUST TRANSITION FROM BELOW: HOW MINEWORKERS IN ZIMBABWE LINK LABOUR RIGHTS TO CLIMATE JUSTICE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/BYSU.F/2026.17.1.103Keywords:
climate justice; mineworkers; just transition; extractivism; labour rights; regulation; redistribution; reparations; ZimbabweAbstract
This article examines how mineworkers in Zimbabwe engage with and reshape climate justice debates amid the expansion of extractive industries and the global green transition. Drawing on qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with mineworkers, trade union officials, and civil society actors, the study explores how experiences of labour exploitation, unsafe working conditions, and environmental degradation shape workers’ understandings of climate justice. The findings indicate that while civil society organisations and policy actors have largely shaped climate justice discourse, mineworkers are articulating claims grounded in everyday struggles and seeking to participate in shaping just transition processes. These claims centre on demands for stronger regulation of labour and environmental standards, more equitable redistribution of mineral wealth, and forms of reparative justice for communities affected by extractivism. Engagement with transnational labour networks further contributes to the emergence of a worker-centred climate justice consciousness linking workplace struggles to broader socio-ecological concerns. By foregrounding worker agency, the article advances a labour-centred perspective on climate justice in the Global South and argues that a just transition must be democratically negotiated, socially redistributive, and historically attentive.
Downloads
References
Abraham, M. (2025). Reparations for Climate and Biodiversity Loss: Deep Dive into Challenges and Solutions. African Futures Action Lab (AFALab). Available at: https://www.afalab.org/the-latest/2025-03-27-reparations-for-climate-and-biodiversity-loss-deep-dive-into-challenges-and-solutions/
Baker, L., Newell, P., & Phillips, J. (2023). The Political Economy of Critical Minerals for the Global Energy Transition. Review of International Political Economy, 30(2), 331–352.
Barca, S. (2019). For a Political Ecology of Labour: Bridging Environmental and Labour Studies. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 30(2), 21–40. Available at: Ahttps://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2017.1411616
Bebbington, A., Humphreys Bebbington, D., Bury, J., Lingan, J., Muñoz, J. P., & Scurrah, M. (2008). Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes. World Development, 36(12), 2888-2905. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.11.016
Bond, P. (2012). Politics of Climate Justice: Paralysis Above, Movement Below. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Bullard, R. D. (1993). Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots. Boston: South End Press.
Centre for Natural Resources Governance. (2025). An Analysis of Chinese Investments in the Mining Sector in Zimbabwe. Harare: CNRG. Available at: https://cnrgzim.org/news/cnrg-condemns-deteriorating-safety-standards-and-rising-inequality-at-bikita-minerals/
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (4th ed.). Sage.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2018). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (5th ed.). Sage.
Dunlap, A., & Böhm, S. (2019). The politics of extraction and global climate change. Environmental Politics, 28(5), 913–933.
EnviroPress. (2025, August 19). Mine blast injures children of workers with tragic histories at Bikita Minerals. EnviroPress. Available at: https://enviropresszim.com/mine-blast-injures-children-of-workers-with-tragic-histories-at-bikita-minerals/
Gaughran, A. (2025). Reclaiming Wealth for Climate, Reparations and Justice. Available at: https://www.somo.nl/reclaiming-wealth-for-climate-reparations-and-justice/?utm
Global Labour University. Trade Unions in Transformation. Available at: https://glu.iversity.org/en/courses/trade-unions-in-transformation
Gudynas, E. (2021). Extractivisms: Politics, economy and ecology. Fernwood Publishing.
Gukurume, S., & Nhodo, L. (2020). Forced displacements in mining communities: Politics in Chiadzwa diamond area, Zimbabwe. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 38(1), 39–54. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2020.1746749
Healy, N., & Barry, J. (2017). Politicizing energy justice and energy system transitions: Fossil fuel divestment and a “just transition”. Energy Policy, 108, 451–459. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.06.014
Hund, K., La Porta, D., Fabregas, T. P., Laing, T., & Drexhage, J. (2020). Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. Available at: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099052423172525564
International Energy Agency. (2021). The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions. Paris: IEA. Available at: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions
International Trade Union Confederation. (2015). Frontlines Report 2015: Workers and the Just Transition. ITUC. Available at: https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc_frontlines_climate_change_report_en.pdf
International Trade Union Confederation – Africa. (2022). Trade Unions Actions Towards Climate Change and a Just Transition: A Trade Union Guide. ITUC-Africa. Available at: https://ituc-africa.org/IMG/pdf/254_481_worker-guide_02.pdf
Jasanoff, S. (ed.) 2004, States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order, Routledge, London.
Jenkins, H. (2014). Chinese Investments and the Restructuring of Zimbabwe’s Mining Sector. Review of African Political Economy, 41(142), 416–433.
Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Labour Research Service. (2018). Trade Unions Going Green: Environmental Issues in the World of Work. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung & Labour Research Service. Available at: https://www.lrs.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Trade-Unions-Going-Green-Environmental-issues-in-the-world-of-work.pdf
Lafitte, G. (2022). Green extractivism: Towards a political ecology of the green economy. Political Geography, 94, 102527. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102527
Lenferna, A. (2025). Three Radical Rs of Environmentalism: From “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” to “Regulation, Redistribution, and Reparations”. In: Barnes, B.R., Fernandes-Jesus, M., Trott, C.D., Barnwell, G. (eds) Community, Psychology and Climate Justice. Community Psychology. Springer, Cham. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-99223-0_5
Lunn, J. (1997). Capital and Labour on the Rhodesian Railway System 1888–1947. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Manduna, T. (2024). Mining, inequality and the just transition in Africa’s resource economies. Review of African Political Economy, 51(1), 89–107.
Martinez-Alier, J. (2001). Mining conflicts, environmental justice, and valuation. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 86(1–3), 153–170. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3894(01)00252-7
McCauley, D., & Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, 1-7. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.04.014
Mkodzongi, G. (2024). Lithium mining and national economic development in Zimbabwe: Prospects for resource-based national development. Policy Paper. Africa Policy Research Institute.
Mkodzongi, G., & Spiegel, S. (2019). Artisanal gold mining and farming: Livelihood linkages and labour dynamics after land reforms in Zimbabwe. Journal of Development Studies, 55(10), 2145–2161. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1516867
Moody, K. (2017). On New Terrain: How Capital Is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Ndlovu, B. (2025). Huayou sinks US$400m in new lithium sulphate processing plant. Harare. NewsDay. Available on: https://www.newsday.co.zw/business/article/200046347/huayou-sinks-us400m-in-new-lithium-sulphate-processing-plant
Newell, P., & Mulvaney, D. (2013). The political economy of the “just transition”. The Geographical Journal, 179(2), 132–140. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12008
Newell, P., Price, R. & Daley, F. (2024). Landscapes of (in)justice: Reflecting on voices, spaces and alliances for just transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 116. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103701.
Nyamwanza, A. M., & Bhatasara, S. (2025). Climate justice and the politics of extraction in Africa: the case of Zimbabwe. Development in Practice, 1–6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2025.2492669
Ostrom, Elinor. (2010). Polycentric Systems for Coping with Collective Action and Global Environmental Change.” Global Environmental Change 20: 550–57.
Özkaynak, B., & Rodríguez-Labajos, B. (2017). Environmental justice through the lens of mining conflicts. Geoforum, 84, 245–250.
Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2015). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed-method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 42(5), 533–544.
Perreault, T. (2013), Dispossession by Accumulation? Mining, Water and the Nature of Enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano. Antipode, 45: 1050-1069. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12005
Raftopoulos, B., & Phimister, I. (2004). Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900–1997. Harare: Baobab Books.
Räthzel, N., Cock, J., & Uzzell, D. (2018). Beyond the nature–labour divide: trade union responses to climate change in South Africa. Globalizations, 15(4), 504–519.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2018.1454678
Sachikonye, L. M. (2011). When a State Turns on Its Citizens: 60 Years of Institutionalised Violence in Zimbabwe. Harare: Weaver Press.
Satgar, V. (2015). A Trade Union Approach to Climate Justice: The Campaign Strategy of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). Global Labour Journal, 6(3). Available at: https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v6i3.2325
Satgar, V. (2018). The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Saunders, R. (2008). “Crisis, Capital, Compromise: Mining and Empowerment in Zimbabwe.” African Sociological Review, 12(1), 67–89.
Schlosberg, D. (2013). Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse. Environmental Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 37–55. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2013.755387
Seitz, S. (2016). Pixilated partnerships, overcoming obstacles in qualitative interviews via Skype: A research note. Qualitative Research, 16(2), 229–235. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794115577011
Sovacool, B. K. (2021). Who are the victims of low-carbon transitions? Towards a political ecology of climate change mitigation. Energy Research & Social Science, 73, 101916.
Stevis, D. & Felli, R. Global labour unions and just transition to a green economy. Int Environ Agreements 15, 29–43 (2015). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-014-9266-1
Sullivan, D. & Hickel, J. (2025). Plundering Africa – Income Deflation and Unequal Ecological Exchange under Structural Adjustment Programmes. ROAPE. Available at: https://roape.net/2025/02/28/plundering-africa-income-deflation-and-unequal-ecological-exchange-under-structural-adjustment-programmes/
Táíwò, O. (2022), 'What’s Next: Why Reparations Require Climate Justice', Reconsidering Reparations (online edition), Oxford Academic. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197508893.003.0005.
Trades Union Congress. (2014, June 4). Unions 4 Climate Action. Trades Union Congress. Available at: https://www.tuc.org.uk/climate
Trappmann, V. & Cutter, J. (2022). UNISON & University of Leeds, Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change (CERIC). UNISON members, climate change, the green economy and Just Transition (Survey Report). UNISON / University of Leeds. Available at: https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2020/02/REPORT-UNISON-Climate-change-pdf.pdf
Van Onselen, C. (1976). Chibaro – African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia 1900–1933. London: Pluto Press.
Whyte, D., & Crawford, B. (2023). Working for Climate Justice: Trade Unions in the Front Line Against Climate Change. Institute of Employment Rights & Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, Queen Mary University of London. Research Paper No. 420/2024. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4709316
Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association. (2023). Chinese dominance in Zimbabwe’s lithium mines: Potential risks, vulnerabilities and opportunities in the critical minerals sector. Available at: https://ipisresearch.be/publication-author/zimbabwe-environmental-law-association-zela/
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Antonater Choto
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
