Abstract
Abstract
Proponents of the African Mining Consensus have argued that foreign-owned industrial mining will drive higher wages than those available in the surrounding economy, and the expenditure of these increased wages can stimulate broader local processes of economic development and structural transformation. This claim is also frequently promoted by the mining industry itself. The purpose of this chapter is to problematize this line of thinking. The main argument is that since the early twentieth century, most worker wages associated with foreign-owned mining in South Kivu have been comparable to, or below, those found in labour-intensive mining locally and generally stagnant. Combined with the high capture of total wages by a narrow foreign managerial class, this has limited the ability of worker wages to stimulate economic development. Meanwhile, the global industry shift to corporate outsourcing in the twenty-first century has weakened the collective strength of workers to resist and transform their conditions.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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