Pozu Santiago (Aller, Asturias) Vicentina Mina was the first cooperative coal which was formed in Franco's Spain assisted by the Trade Union Work Cooperation and served as a touchstone for the validity of these experiences in a time of deep crisis for the world's coal. Was assigned to the eighty workers within its workforce and were engaged with their physicians to meet the operating costs and repayment terms, having reached an agreement with owners when their average production was two thousand tonnes per month.
The plan was that the salary of the cooperative was established in accordance with its work, with a commitment to receive proportionately the benefits they occur at the end of each exercise, but, probably because then the times were not propitious for these developments , the omens that technicians exposed from the first moment he met and the plan eventually failed.
early sixties were in bad years for the Asturian coal. Since the end of the Civil War production had not stopped growing, but the trend changed in 1959 when the so-called stabilization plan the Franco released tariffs and oil began to gain ground that it would not yield ever, and it was the time of migration, which took a lot of skilled labor, and long strikes, which accounted for higher labor costs, first by cessation of activity that brought implicit and, secondarily, by higher wages for workers who got subtracted from the benefits.
addition, another consequence of these conflicts, what we now call side-effects was that the doors were opened abroad to supply the mineral to be extracted leaving here.
In this sense, the great strike of 1962 not only accelerated the decline in profitability of companies that reduced their earnings that year and stopped paying a dividend, to the extent that the smallest began to consider the closure and large put on the table the possibility of merging to adjust its size to the real needs of the times to come.
The government's reaction was to operate the call for concerted action, led to the coal sector with the aim of increasing productivity, which was indispensable to concentrate holdings improving work organization and profitability. Their bases were established in December 1963 in the First Plan development, but the order was not issued until March 30, 1965, and in general, consisting of something like five-year plans they had designed the Russian Communists, only here the time to get state aid was limited to four years.
Unfortunately for all, the plan failed, despite the different paths that tried to link the mines. In April 1966 he proposed the merger of Duro-Felguera Metallurgical Society, Fábrica de Mieres, SA, Industrial Asturiana Santa Barbara, SA and English coal, SA into one, called at first Henansa (Coal and Energy Northwest, Inc.) Hayes then (Hulleras and Northern Energy, Inc.), with a capital of 7,000 million pesetas. The State would control half of the company and its activities are diversified between the mines and power plants, but soon abandoned the idea of \u200b\u200bproducing electricity.
However, some companies such as Figaro, Nespral, Langreo, Siero, La Camocha or Hulleras of Veguín of Olloniego, preferred to go alone because their problems were not yet overwhelming and allowed them to address the expectations of concerted action. For its part, also try Hulleras of Turon saved alone, reducing staff, closing what was not profitable and modernize the rest.
Thus, finally the national government decided to take the bull by the horns and by a decree issued on March 9, 1967 was the North Hulleras Empresa Nacional, SA (Hunosa) to exploit the coal mines and control activities related to them. Companies that quoted above were added Asturian Coal, Inc. and New Mountain Quijano, SA, which ultimately amounted to nothing less than 1,500 grants and 250 dumps scattered eight municipalities: ours.
The initial capital was 3,380 million pesetas, of which the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI) contributed 76.92% and the remainder being divided among the companies that were integrated in the project and met at that time a staff of 20,017 workers with an output of 3,145,140 tons.
On July 1, 1968 was a new block of additions, with hard coal and Olloniego Veguín, Carbones de La Nueva and finally Hulleras of Turon and a year later, also joined Langreo Mines and Siero, Mina Tres Amigos and Carbones de Langreo. Finally, on January 1, 1970 Nespral and Co. did., Minas de Rios, Coto Musel and Mina Incarnate Hunosa thus became the third public mining group in Spain after the Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo and National Coal Company South, although in fact the giant had feet of clay and it was only a facade behind which hide the failure of a well-capitalized and with low productivity.
In 1969 it was clear that was a vast ruin Hunosa would never get out of the red. He blamed the companies have had for years inventoried machines not working and obsolete materials, and the State decided to apply an oxygen cylinder in the form of a restructuring plan was expected to redress the balance by increasing production and adjusting templates so that in a decade, the tables were turned and could even see some benefit.
was useless, the losses were so high and entrepreneurs had it so clear that when a few months the Government took the drastic decision to open a new subscription of securities to achieve other 3,900 million and refloat the ship no one wanted to buy huge those actions and was the INI who had take care of everything, which now controls 100% of the company.
The rest you know because you have lived. Although his letters became part of the families of the Basin, no one ever believed in Hunosa, employers could be leaving in terms of that bottomless pit, the State wanted to get rid of mine even before they have their own, but never found time to take the plunge and, meanwhile, from the lowest rung of the workforce to the highest in the hierarchy is living the feeling that the company was not anyone and was allowed to begin work absurd or expensive machines coming from far away are oxidized forgotten in the corners without being put into operation.
losses became so outrageous that the mining and by extension all of Asturias became the paradigm of bad government and the waste and from other regions still luckier we reproach a drain which had no guilt .
strange thing is that we are convinced that things could not be otherwise way and assume the pit closures inevitable, and now, when we were quiet, we see with wonder how the mining of coal, again in private hands, it becomes profitable. I think someone took us to the garden.
Text: Ernesto Burgos
Photo: State Industrial Holdings Company
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