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30 July, 2026African mining unions have launched the African mining network (AMNet) to coordinate regional action on the sector. The network will focus on mine workers' rights, precarious work, health and safety, critical minerals, supply-chain accountability and a Just Transition across the continent.
On 27 July, more than 50 delegates from 12 African countries agreed during an online meeting to build a common platform for mining unions. Trade unions in mining still organize mainly within national borders. Mining companies, by contrast, operate across borders with ease.
AMNet priorities
According to discussions in the meeting, AMNet will build union power through regional and global organizing including union-to-union solidarity and commodity-based company networks. It will also defend workers against precarious work, promote freedom of association, collective bargaining and living wages. The network will confront casualisation, subcontracting and migrant-labour exploitation. Further, it will advance a Just Transition in coal and critical mineral regions through reskilling, social protection and worker participation.
Further, it will hold capital accountable through due diligence frameworks and coordinated campaigns against multinationals that violate workers and human rights. AMNet will carry this mandate through research, organizing and policy advocacy. The network will engage with governments, the African Union, regional economic communities and multilateral development banks.
Participants identified precarious contracts, weak health and safety enforcement and the growing footprint of Chinese mining firms as challenges no single IndustriALL Global Union affiliate can tackle alone. They also highlighted the increasing demand for critical minerals caused by the global energy transition including copper, cobalt, lithium, platinum group metals and rare earth elements.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia dominate global cobalt production, while South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Ghana anchor platinum, lithium, diamond and gold value chains. Additionally, the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea has the largest high grade iron ore project globally. Yet pressure to extract quickly rather than beneficiate, create decent jobs and tax fairly is sacrificing workers’ rights and risking Africa’s lock-in to low-value extraction while decarbonization gains accrue elsewhere.
Precarious work, critical minerals and mine safety
The meeting stated that Africa supplies the raw materials for global decarbonization but remains largely confined to extraction, with limited industrial upgrading and weak links to domestic transformation. This enclave model creates mineral wealth with few spillovers into jobs or diversification. Subcontracting, labour broking and informalization have further eroded standard employment relationships and weakened collective bargaining, while artisanal and small-scale mining remains largely informal.
Health and safety risks remain severe, especially in underground and poorly regulated operations. Ratification and enforcement of the ILO Safety and Health in Mines Convention (C176) are uneven, leaving African mineworkers exposed to fatalities, injuries, and occupational disease.
The meeting heard that multinational corporations still dominate production and value distribution. Voluntary ESG and human rights due diligence frameworks have had limited impact, particularly where enforcement is weak and binding accountability is absent.
Multilateral development banks financing mining infrastructure and green-transition reforms have adopted Just Transition language, but their investment-friendly approaches sometimes violate workers’ rights where labour flexibility is treated as a condition for capital.
These concerns echoed IndustriALL’s 2025 Sydney global mining conference, which called for stronger organizing across multinationals, sharper Just Transition frameworks, better safety and firmer supply-chain accountability.
Leadership structure and regional organizing
The proposed AMNet leadership includes two co-chairs and a secretary. It also includes Francophone and North Africa representatives and a representative for women and youth, with thematic subcommittees to follow.
Speakers argued that the network needs leaders who are able to engage governments and multinationals directly. Delegates also agreed to organize around focused themes, rather than try to cover every issue at once.
“Africa could control a significant share of global platinum supply if the continent organized to capture the value, for example, in South Africa and Zimbabwe’s platinum resources rather than simply exporting the ore,”
said Mpho Phakedi, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.
Platinum and diamond supply-chain accountability
Participants agreed that the network success will be case based. The first is Impala Platinum’s supply chain, which runs from mines in Zimbabwe and South Africa to Volkswagen factories in Germany. Unions plan to use that chain as leverage, working with the Human Rights Due Diligence Competence Centre and German supply-chain law to seek remedy where violations are found.
The second is diamonds. An August meeting in Botswana will examine the global diamond sector, with producers such as De Beers invited, as affiliates build a collective union response to market volatility affecting cutters and miners. On health and safety, affiliates continue collecting country-level data to give the network’s arguments an evidence base.
“This is an important network which must be a platform for building trade union power: defending workers’ rights, building union strength, holding capital accountable and shaping a Just Transition that works for Africa’s mineworkers,”
said Kemal Ozkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.