Chapter 3

I looked around in the main hall, it was like almost everyone I know was in the meeting. Hasn't anyone gone underground today. How is the production going to take place today? I asked myself. Their was calmness in the hall. We all didn't know way the meeting was being called. And it was an emergency one. This has never happened before in my twelve years working with koala mining plc.

I was about to ask the guy next to me when the speakers started the introductions. The intros were done faster and the vice president of the company stood up and started saying something about the reduction in production and that the company can't keep the all work force since they are trying to bring in some contracts with their own equipment to do the meaning in critical areas of production so that the can increase copper production.

The VP continued by saying. We are going to out source the Labour to contractors and you'll be paid by the same contractor that we'll outsource you to. But you'll still be a permanent a employees of kopala mines. Then some of you will still be not attached to anyone but continue working in your usual areas then again some will be transferred to other departments within the mining industry mostly security and concentrator.

No was said word. The things we were all afraid of were now happening faster than we thought. I believe everything one was inside themselves asking, what next?. We had seen production going down and up in the years. This Indian company had taken a lot from this mine but they were not ploughing back. The only thing they did was just take. Every time the copper prices went down, the always had a way of complaining.

I was looking around and thinking of what would happen to the people of this small town that only dependent on the mine. The sad faces in the hall were no longer in this room. The minds had drifted somewhere else in the compounds. Looking at how the will feed their loved ones. Send the children to school. Plough the maize fields as usual for additional supplement.

I too drifted in that same category. My mind was switched of and I wasn't thinking straight. The day was slow after the meeting and no one talked too much but only worked trying to get find the solution to the days that were about to unfold. My computer screen looked blared and I couldn't see anything for the lest of the shift.