The 1962 Asturian miners' strike was a major strike action taken by coal miners in the Spanish region of Asturias.[1]
Background
editAfter his 1937 victory in the Spanish Civil War, General Francisco Franco banned all trade unions and workers' organisations. Franco's government continued its campaign of repression against working class activists in 1940s, executing and imprisoning them and sending them to labour camps with the intention of eliminating what remained of the radical workers' movement.[2]
Mining in Asturias reached its peak in 1958, with 52,000 miners. Coal production helped to fuel an economic boom which, over the 14 years that followed, caused Spain to undergo unprecedented growth and a social and economic transformation. Workers moved into the cities and industries, forming a new working class unaffected by the Civil War,[2] and in 1962 Spain's 72 mining companies employed 44,250 workers.[3]: 52 In the 1960s, this new class sought to improve its material conditions and bring about democracy; the Asturian miners were central to this process.[2]
Strike
editOn 7 April 1962, in response to the sacking of seven miners,[2] miners from the Nicolas de Mieres mine struck in support of a minimum wage of 140 pesetas per day[4] (ending a state-imposed wage freeze),[2] the right to strike and free trades unions. By 20 April, all the coal mines in the region were closed. Two days later, three companies of the policia armada and two Civil Guard companies were rushed to the region to break the strike. In May, students and workers in Barcelona declared their solidarity with the Asturian workers[4] (the student movement organised a series of demonstrations in support of the miners)[3]: 51 and, at one point, 52,550 workers across Spain were officially recorded as being on strike. A second wave of strikes took place in Asturias and Catalonia in August and September 1962, and was met with police repression and summary court-martials.[4]
The regime responded with torture, beatings and mass arrests. Some striking workers were forcibly sent to live in other parts of the country. Shopkeepers and small farmers provided food for those on strike, and fishermen in the Basque Country worked extra hours to provide for the strikers.[2]
Poet Juan Goytisolo later recollected reporting on the strike for the France-Observateur and his "illusions that the final struggle was at hand." Goytisolo met with López Salinas, who he described as "totally at ease in his role as the carefree bourgeois with time on his hands", in keeping with his "legendary reputation as an elusive, mocking Scarlet Pimpernel."[5]
Impact
editEnrique Larana argues that the strike marked the end of a "dormant" period in which political mobilisation was repressed and the beginning of a modern stage of collective protest actions under late Francoism and the transition to democracy.[6]
In culture
editJaime Gil de Biedma's poem "Asturias, 1962" is a tribute to the miners, in which the speaker compares different types of silence: destructive silences which muffle communication like that after the Civil War, and silences charged with anticipation of change, like that during the strike.[7] The dissident Basque poet Ángela Figuera also wrote about the strike, including in her poem "Romance de Puebloespaña" ("Romance of the Spanish People"), which is subtitled "(1962)" and dedicated to the "huelguistas de mayo" ("May strikers"). Christine Arkinstall writes that in Figuera's work, the date of 1962 "functions as a site of dissident memory" which drives a wedge into a period otherwise occupied by the regime and opens up space for counterhistories to emerge.[8]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Schubert, Adrian (20 November 1990). A Social History of Modern Spain. London: Routledge. p. 230. ISBN 0415090830. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f Durgan, Andy (17 July 2012). "The miners of Asturias and their long history of struggle". Socialist Worker. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
- ^ a b Maravall, José María (8 June 1978). Dictatorship and Political Dissent: Workers and Students in Franco's Spain. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0422761605. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
- ^ a b c Christie, Stuart (2003). General Franco Made Me a 'terrorist': The Interesting Years Abroad of a West of Scotland 'baby-boomer', Part 2; Parts 1964–1967. ChristieBooks.com. pp. 238–9. ISBN 1873976194. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
- ^ Goytisolo, Juan (2003). Forbidden Territory; And, Realms of Strife. Translated by Peter Bush. New York: Verso. p. 229. ISBN 185984555X. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ^ Larana, Enrique (19 August 1994). New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 304. ISBN 1566391873. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ^ Wright, Eleanor (1986). The Poetry of Protest Under Franco. London: Tamesis Books. p. 174. ISBN 0729302105. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ^ Arkinstall, Christine (30 January 2009). Histories, Cultures, and National Identities: Women Writing Spain (1877–1984). Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press. p. 98. ISBN 0838757286. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
see sources in http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/spanish-coal-miners-challenge-franco-dictatorship-1962