Union minière, and then Gécamines, are well known for having developed a paternalist policy that covered every aspect of the lives of workers and their families. Since the liberalization of the Congolese mining sector in 2003, however, Gécamines has handed over its most important assets to foreign investors, who have developed new mining and industrial projects. What changes have new mining companies brought to the organization of work? To answer this question, this paper will take as a case study the human resources management practices of a “Chinese” private company in which I have been allowed to do research. My main argument is that HR management practices are less imposed from the outside than progressively adapted to the constraints that mining companies are faced with in Congo. As a result of this process, the labour policy of new mining companies in the Congolese copperbelt seems to not so much break with the history of paternalism under Union minière and Gécamines than give it a new direction.