Zambia’s Copperbelt has been a centre of the world copper industry for almost a century. When mining began on an industrial scale in the 1920s, the mines employed both migrant white and African workers. By the time of Zambia’s independence in 1964, around 7,500 white workers and 38,000 African workers were employed on the mines.
Although they worked alongside each other, white and African mineworkers did not do the same jobs. There was a clear racial division in the workplace during the colonial period. The best-paid skilled jobs were reserved for white workers, who had organised themselves into a trade union and enforced a “colour bar”. The average white mineworker was paid almost ten times the average African mineworker in 1960.
