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2 December, 2025On 1 December, trade unions representing millions of African workers in mining, energy and manufacturing industries gathered in Addis Ababa, declared that unless the new African green minerals strategy (AGMS) is radically redesigned around decent work and local value addition, the green boom will simply become the latest chapter in the extraction and export of mineral resources.
The declaration, by 35 trade unionists from 14 countries, was made at a colloquium to celebrate Africa Industrialization Day under the theme: “Empowering workers in the AGMS: Balancing industrialization with human rights due diligence.”
The colloquium heard that Africa sits on more than 30 per cent of the world’s reserves of the minerals that will power the energy transition: cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, copper in Zambia, nickel in Madagascar, manganese in Gabon, graphite in Mozambique, lithium in Zimbabwe and rare earths scattered from Namibia to Burundi. Yet the continent’s share of the value created from these resources has barely changed since the colonial era.
The declaration, jointly adopted by the IndustriALL Global Union Sub-Saharan Africa regional office and ITUC-Africa, shows that organized labour wants workers and communities to benefit from critical transition minerals (CTMs). “There can be no green transition without decent work,” the unions insist, demanding permanent contracts, living wages, sector-wide collective bargaining and enforceable supply-chain accountability for Western and Chinese multinational corporations.
According to McKinsey estimates meeting global net-zero targets by 2050 will require US$3.5 trillion of investment in critical minerals, with Africa potentially capturing US$1 trillion of that if it moves up the value chain. At present, the continent exports almost all its output as ore or low-grade concentrate. For instance, a smartphone battery that retails for US$50 may contain Congolese cobalt worth less than ten cents at the mine gate. The rest of the margin accrues in refineries in China, battery plants in South Korea or Germany and assembly lines in California or Shenzhen. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo earned just US$1.2 billion in cobalt royalties in 2024 despite exporting material worth over US$20 billion on world markets.
Further, the unions’ demands are that the AGMS must mandate local processing and manufacturing. For example, batteries can be manufactured in Kolwezi, cathodes in Kitwe, precursor chemicals in Johannesburg backed by binding local-content rules and social clauses in new investment packages. They insist that the strategy’s proposed 5 per cent of payroll for skills funds and 1 per cent of sales for research and development be co-governed by unions. They also demand renegotiation of existing contracts to stop profit-shifting and illicit financial flows, with revenues channelled into sovereign wealth funds rather than externalized to tax havens.
The unions want environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards to be implemented with explicit labour protections including freedom of association, occupational health and safety, and decent work.
The colloquium emphasized that Africa’s working-age population will grow by about 450 million people by 2050 but without industrial jobs on a massive scale, that demographic dividend risks becoming a social catastrophe. “Resource-for-security” deals, unions warn, risk turning mineral provinces into new arenas of proxy conflict.
“Africa is rich beneath the ground but poor above it and this must change,” said Martha Molema, ITUC-Africa president.
“Critical minerals must power African industrialization and decarbonization, support manufacturing industries and create jobs for the youth. Further, women in mining must be given licences and financial support to mine critical minerals,”
said Rose Omamo, IndustriALL vice president and ITUC-Africa deputy president.