MINING AND MINERS IN LATIN AMERICA: AN INTRODUCTION

Author(s): Dirk Kruijt

Source: Boletín de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 32, MINERS AND MINING IN
LATIN AMERICA (Junio de 1982), pp. 25-28
Published by: Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns Amerika (CEDLA)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25675124 .
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MINING AND MINERS IN LATIN AMERICA:AN INTRODUCTION

Dirk Kruijt

The following four articles have all been presented in a previous draft as papers
at the forum 'Politics and Labor Relations in the Mining Enclaves of Latin Ame
rica in the Late Seventies', during the Tenth National Meeting of the Latin Ame
rican Studies Association (LASA, Washington, March 4-6, 1982). Kenneth Cole
man (University of Kentucky) acted as referent.A number of his comments are
in this introduction. *
included

For a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America there seems to be
no otherperspective than
develop to themselves
exporters as The of raw materials.
fate of Malaysia, Zambia, Zaire, Bolivia, Chile and Peru is to produce minerals such as tin,

lead, copper and other metals, and to remain dependent on the export revenues. The
structure of their economies was created at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning
of the twentieth century and has been consolidated till the sixties. Until then, only a few
multinational mining corporations controlled the whole column of production, pro
cessing, transport, commerce and distribution. Since then the independence of the
African and Asian former colonies and the self-reliance strategies in Latin America have
resulted in a changed relation between the State and the
(national) (multinational)
company.
In general, through of taxes and direct nationalisation, a larger share
aggravation
of the revenues has benefitted the national State. More than before the State controls
the production and the processing of minerals. In most of the Third World countries,
joint ventures with the original multinational and the creation of State enter
companies
prises for the exploitation and the commerce of the mineral products have become
a common pattern.
In the last two decades the relation State versus multinational has di
company
versified in the following
itself ways :

(a) the multinational mining companies tend to make less direct investments in new

mining projects. More and more those new projects are set up
participa by multilateral
tion:1 most of them are together with State
developed enterprises through direct project
investment, supplied by national and international public and private funds, and managed
by specially created new managing corporations, in which several multinational com

panies participate. The spreading of new investment has been accelerated

arrangements
in the mid-seventies by the penetration of the established multinational petroleum
corporations in the hard rock mining domain. These new oil
and mining conglomerates
tend to make easier agreements with Third World countries than the ori
participation
ginal multinational companies.
Because of those developments, the fact that the direct investments of western
mining companies in the Third World diminished after 1970 has only a relative signi
ficance. The presence of the oil companies, the share of the State
larger enterprises
and the investment strategy of direct of multilateral
project financing mining projects

* The four articles were selected and edited for publication by Dirk Kruijt and Francisco Zapata.
1 See Mikesell (1975).

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has led to a rising of the share of the Third World countries in thewestern world output
of the seven major minerals. Copper, bauxite, iron ore, lead, nickel, tin and zinc rose
from 36 per cent in 1950 to 41 per cent in 1960, 45 per cent in 1970 and 48 per cent
in 1978.2
(b) since 1960 the exporting Third World countries have consistently tried to
extend national control of
processing and commerce, as well as reduce
production,
national dependence mineral upon
export. The first objective led to the creation of the
State enterprises and the preference for joint ventures, service contracts for production,
external sales and employment of national management, and the tendency to form
cartels of producer countries
(tin, bauxite, copper, iron ore, etc.). The second objective
led to national development strategies aimed at breaking the external dependency by
forward and diversification of production. But despite these purposive ac
integration
tivities during the last twenty years in the Third World countries mentioned, the tendency
on mineral has not
to dependence export reduced, but continues (see table 1). In two
of the three Latin American countries, mentioned in table 1, the nationalisation of
the most centres and the creation of State enterprises such as
important production
COMIBOL, CODELCO and MINEROPERU, with almost monopolistic options for
and commerce, did increase the national dependence on mineral export.
production
It seems as if the dependence of a number of national economies in Latin America
on the revenues of copper, tin, lead and bauxite will continue, in spite of the changing
relation between State and multinational company.

Table 1

EXPORTS OF TEN MAJOR MINERALS AS SHARE OF NATIONAL EXPORTS,

1960-1974 (percentages)

1960 19 72-1974

Zambia 96 98
Bolivia 80 83
Chile 7877
Zaire 74 73
Peru 56
49

Source: Radetski (1977: 332).

The involvement of labour in mining, however, did not change. Speaking about

is speaking about a tradition of exploitation, and speaking about miners is speak

mining
radical sindicalism and militant strikes. That the miners in Bolivia, Chile and
ing about
Peru have become an important factor in the economy and the political arena, is generally
on. But there are different perspectives.
agreed
Some authors describe and explain the miners' organisation, ideology and actions

in terms of an or explicit conservatism. The most outspoken of these are Lands

implicit
berger (1967) for the Latina American, and Arrighi (1970) for the African continent.
In both cases describe 'labour elites' or 'labour aristocracies' which supposedly
they
are alienated from the from which they emerged and which, at the cost
proletariat

2 See Radetski (1982: 44-45).

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of the dominated classes, try to improve their position in alliance with the national

bourgeoisie and the multinational corporations. Leaving aside the more conceptual
inconsistencies of both authors,3 one should comment in advance that they have for
mulated their theses on miners, enclave economies and the relation between State and

company without
specific empirical research.
empirically A number
underpinned of
studies all falsified or considerably
have modified the original theses.4
That miners indeed form a specific segment of the working class is explained

by a number of conditions related to the nature of the work, the way of organisation
and the strategic of mining in the economy, and the role of the miners' or
position
ganisation in politics:
in general it forms a proletariat
that lives apart from and not together with
(a)
the rest of the urban-industrial segment. Despite the existence of a long tradition of
in Latin America, it is in most cases a first generation from
mining proletariat arising
the peasantry. is mostly an enclave also in a physical sense. It is organised
Mining activity,
in company towns and isolated
encampments.5
(b) unlike the rest of the urban-industrial segment, miners live
generally in a
situation of complete opposites. Not only the sphere of labour and income is directly
defined by the company, but in fact almost all other relevant spheres of life such as

housing, food, education, health and contact with the outside world are directly related
to the mining company. This defines the sindicato as a defence bastion,
immediately
and the loyalty towards the union as a requisite for everyday life.

(c) unlike the rest of the urban-industrial segment, miners are extremely well

organised. Their strong union structure makes them a strategic sector within organised
labour in countries where the organisation level of the urban and rural proletariat is

generally low.
more than the rest of the urban-industrial
(d) segment, miners play a vital role in
the national economy. Even for the most repressive military it is advisable to look
regime
for cooptation and neutralising rather than to use violent The national need
repression.
for uninterrupted production in the mining enclaves created for the well
always organised
unions a certain space to fight for and maintain their economic and labour
bargaining
position.
The miners of Bolivia, Chile and Peru are solidly and well
organised prepared
to defend themselves. have done so during the last decade in a situation in which
They
military regimes were in control. The syndicate actions have been mostly defensive and
concern more the maintenance and of their economic than support
improvement position
for political alternatives. Indeed, the first solidarity of the mineros has always been the
syndical structure and only secondly the political order. The to maintain
tendency
the syndical autonomy is always present. The mineworkers' union constitutes a labour
defence structure and not a political party. Neither in Bolivia nor in Peru does there
exist a solid political with vested traditions and an elaborated
organisation proletarian
political alternative to the existing order; also in the near future there is little hope

3 For criticism of Landsberger, see Whitehead and for criticism of Arrighi, see Waterman
(1980),
(1975).
4 See for the African situation studies published by Sandbrook and Cohen and cited by
(1975)
Konings (1978); for the Latin American situation see the articles published by Torre
(1978)
and Zapata (1980).
5 Kerr and Siegel (1954: 195) define mining as strike prone, formulating their empirical generali
sation of strike generic sectors : who are of
employing relatively homogeneous contingents
workers with little internal role differentiation,
internally cohesive and, as a whole, isolated
from the rest of society.

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 for their realisation. Chile suffers under a dictatorship that destroyed such an organisa
tion and tradition. In all three countries the miners would probably become one of the

pillars of a proletarian movement; but they are not the substitute for proletarian parties
that failed to arise. During the last decade many of the labour conflicts between the

military and the proletariat have been fought out by the miners. It looks as though
it will happen again in the next decade. The miners* strength to oppose repression under

military regimes in Bolivia, Chile and Peru has been greater than that of many other
labour and political party organisations that vanished or were forced into exile.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arrighi, Giovanni 'International Corporations, Labor Aristocracies and Economic

Development in Tropical Africa* in: Robert I. Rhodes Im

(ed.),
and :A Reader. New York,
perialism Underdevelopment Monthly
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Kerr, Clark and 'The Interindustrial to Strike : An International

Propensity
Abraham Siegel Comparison' in: A. Kornhauser, R. Dubin and A.M.Ross (eds.),
Industrial Conflict New York, McGraw-Hill, 1954.

Konings, Piet The Political Potential of Ghanian Miners. Leyden, Africa Studies
Centre, 1978.

Henry 'The Labor Elite : Is It Revolutionary?' in: Martin

Landsberger, Seymour
Lipset and Aldo Solari (eds.), Elites in Latin America, Oxford and
New York, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 256-300.

Mikesell, R. Foreign Investment in Copper Mining. Baltimore, John Hopkins

Press, 1975.

Radetski,Marian 'Why Should Developing Countries' Minerals Be Processed? The

Country View versus the Multinational Company View' in: World

Development V (1977), 4, pp. 325-334.

'Has Political Risk Scared Mineral Investment away from the

Deposits in Developing Countries?' in: World Development X

(1982), l,pp. 39-48.

Sandbrook, R. and The Development of an African Class. London, The

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Torre, Juan Carlos La Situacion Laboral en America Latina. Special Issue of the

(ed.) Revista Mexicana de Sociologia XL (1978), 2.

Waterman, Peter 'The "Labour Aristocracy" in Africa: Introduction to a Debate' in:

Development and Change VI (1975), 3, pp. 57-73.

Whitehead, Lawrence 'Sobre el Radicalismo de los Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia' in:

Revista Mexicana de Sociologia XLII (1980), 4, pp. 1465-1496.

Zapata, Francisco Trabajadores Mineros. Special Issue of the Revista Mexicana de

(ed.) Sociologia XLII (1980), 4.

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