Centrum Voor Studie en Documentatie Van Latijns Amerika (CEDLA)

MODERN MINE LABOUR AND POLITICS IN PERU SINCE 1968
Author(s): David Becker

Source: Boletín de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 32, MINERS AND MINING IN
LATIN AMERICA (Junio de 1982), pp. 61-86
Published by: Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns Amerika (CEDLA)
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MODERNMINE LABOURAND POLITICS INPERU SINCE 1968
David Becker
INTRODUCTION
Class analysis is a powerful

tool for comprehending the changing nature of political
domination and social in the process
control of capitalist development. Because they
aim precisely at such a comprehension, dependency approaches to the understanding
of current Latin American development might be expected to make profitable use of
class-analytical To some extent, they have. Stimulated by the nationalist

techniques.
value orientation of dependencismo, various authors have sought to locate the 'taproot
-
of i.e., the root social mechanism by which the purported external
dependency'1
-
shaping of Latin American capitalist development is maintained in the structure, char
acter and political behaviour of national bourgeoisies and middle classes. These have
been described as non-entrepreneurial, subservient to foreign capital, and incapable
of assuming the task of social reconstruction commonly ascribed to the older bour
geoisies of the world Or, it is held that processes of development involving

metropoli.2
transnational capital have the effect of fractionating these classes, destroying the mutual
interest basis of their cohesion, and thus making it impossible for them to assume a de
velopmental leadership role.3

A corollary to this view is that Latin American are of achiev
bourgeoisies incapable
ing consensual control founded on In
consequence,
ideological hegemony. capitalist
development can be neither progressive nor for the popular classes. Local
liberating
classes are therefore to press for an immediate -
working urged transition to socialism
which, given proletarian groups' relatively small numbers and low levels of consciousness
at the present time, inevitably means acceptance of the Leninist model :
thoroughgoing
change directed from on high by a vanguard party of intellectuals and bureaucrats. Their
claim to represent the material interests of the working class has been shown, however,
to rest on sheer
ideology.
I have elsewhere the image of a non-hegemonic
challenged bourgeoisie presented
by dependencismo, at least for an instance of capitalist based on exporta
development
tion of mineral resources :*bonanza I have called it.4 Here I wish to join
development',
with those who have begun to call attention to another weakness
of dependency-oriented
class analysis, viz., its failure thus far to deal empirically with subordinate social forces.^
The task of class analysis, in my opinion, is to treat
'. the formation, and relations of all significant -
practices, class actors most
certainly including the working class, as the latter is essential to the dialectic
1 A term derived
from Hobson (1939) who referred to the 'taproot of imperialism'.
2 for example, Cardoso and Cardoso and Faletto
See, (1972;1973) (1979); also see Evans (1979).
The image of 'heroic' bourgeoisie which these and other authors seem to use as their implicit
standard of what bourgeois performance ought to be is due to Schumpeter The
(1935:42).
concept of bourgeois 'heroism' has been attacked, with special reference to Peru, by Wils
(1979).
3 The most detailed and original exposition of this view is by Sunkel a similar view
(1973);
is set forth more abstractly by Galtung (1971).
4 See Becker (1982).
5 Among them Henfrey (1981) and Sofer (1980).
61

of capitalist change and transformation. An of bourgeois
analysis and middle
class "fractions", alone, is actually an elite analysis. It is adequate for displaying
the inequities of capitalist development but can conceive of power and control
solely in terms of a "circulation of elites". Since it can neither comprehend

tendencies toward the amelioration of capitalist excesses that arise with the
growth of working-class political cohesion and nor considers the

capabilities,
prospects for bourgeois it presupposes an un
political-ideological hegemony,
dynamic, non-transformatory capitalism which must be maintained in force
by political authoritarianism\ (Emphasis in original.)6

That is, the unevenness of capitalist development is only part of the story. As Bill Warren
in a work,7 the formation of the proletariat as a
emphasised posthumously published
self-conscious class fur sich, despite all its traumas and wrenching dislocations, is itself
a - a
progressive outgrowth of the dialectics of capitalist development fact that must
not be overlooked when assessing the change process that the latter unleashes.
This article presents an empirical study, based on field research in 1977-78 and
1981, of working-class formation and action in the Peruvian mineria, or mining sector.
Peruvian mine labour is an interesting subject for investigation, for the following reasons:
1 Mine labour, established as a of sorts by the 1930*8 and by
proletariat organised
the 1940's, has served as the spearhead of a national labour movement which has
virtually exploded into activity since 1968. It has been able to act as such because
of the centrality of mining exports to the health of the economy.8
2 Rather remarkably in the Latin the explosive
American growth of labour's
context,
organisational place a took

military regime. under
capabilities
3 The growth of the labour movement has had a counterpart in the rise of a dynamic
Left that participates with considerable success in national and local
political
elections.
4 Whereas the threat of labour-Left activity is said to be a major factor
political
in precipitating authoritarian rule, in Peru the military regime surrendered power
in 1980 to a democratically elected civilian government.
The purpose of the study is to investigate the shape of class conflict in today's
Peru; the nature of the state in this and other cases of bonanza the pros
development;
pects for continued civilian rule and political stability; and, closely related to all the
foregoing, the ability of the working class to realise its material interest under the existing
order.
There have been a number of previous studies of working-class formation and
action in the Peruvian mineria, but all of them have concentrated on the workers of
the Cerro de Pasco Corporation (expropriated in 1974, it is now known as CENTRO
MIN.)9 This North American firm, having set up shop in the Peruvian Andes in 1901,
faced the challenge of uprooting peasants from their traditional way of life in order
to build a labour force.
In contrast, there have been no published studies of the 'modern' labour force
of the Southern Peru Copper Corporation, which operates two huge open-pit copper
6 See Becker (1982).

7 See Warren (1980).
8 In 1980, mine and refinery products accounted for 42.6 per cent of export revenues -double
the percentage of the next most significant export, petroleum, and far greater than any other
product. Two mining firms, Southern Peru Copper and CENTROMIN, usually are the country's
largest taxpayers.
9 See Bonilla (1974), DeWind (1977), Flores (1974), Kapsoli (1975), Kruijt andVellinga (1979);
see also Morello (1976), Ocampo (1972) and Sulmont (1974;1975).
62

mines in the southern Andean foothills of Moquegua and Tacnadepartments. Though
only about a third the size of Cerro's workforce at its largest, this small working-class
in Southern's highly capital intensive installations, has been a true pro
body, engaged
letariat from the start. It
also enjoys great economic leverage, since Southern alone
produces 70 per cent of Peru's annual copper output. This work therefore focuses
primarily on the workers of Southern and, to a lesser extent, their comrades in two other
modern mining enterprises in the south of Peru: the Marcona iron mine (operated since
its 1974 nationalisation by HIERROPERU) and the new parastatal enterprise,MINERO
PERU. However, it also deals with the Cerro situation and with another neglected work
group: the workers of the mostly nationally owned private sector of medium mines
(the mediana mineria).
THE HISTORICAL PROCESS OF CLASS TRANSFORMATION IN THE MINERIA
The operations of Cerro and Southern define two epochs of proletarian class
formation in Peruvian mining. One began in 1901 and was concentrated in the central
Andean sierra where Cerro and much of the mediana mineria operate. The other began
around 1954 and involves the capital intensive mining that have
operations developed
in recent times in the foothills of the southern sierra and along the south-central coast.
The protagonists of the first epoch were peasants, most of them very much tied to the
traditional agricultural economy of the or the comunidad. Those
latifundio indigenous
of the second epoch have been mostly ex-peasant migrants from the altiplano and urban
barriada dwellers.
Cerro in its first years was a neocolonial outpost, its zone of operations virgin
territory for capitalism. The woefully debile authority of the state had not yet established
itself with permanence in the sierra; and labour Cerro's
recruiters, once their needs
grew beyond what the few small, old mining towns could encountered a stably
supply,
entrenched peasantry. It was a peasantry resistant to mine labour. Cerro
particularly
created a coercive means, at a time when state power was feeble
proletariat by largely
and when capitalists customarily evinced not the slightest concern for workers' human
welfare. As a result, the as a state-within-a-state, fierce
company operated engendering
nationalist resentment of its 'enclave' character and its maltreatment of its workforce.
That resentment endured over the years the later amelioration of the worst
despite
- as a
exploitative conditions did 'social debt' to the popular classes, of
compounded
past abuses and the company's inability or refusal to improve the Dickensian conditions
in most of its mining camps.
Proletarian class formation mines in the
of the south has had little
large open-pit
in common with what occurred
centre, in
the the
end point is quite similar
although
in certain Here the companies -
respects. Southern Peru Copper, with its Toquepala
mine and Ilo smelter, and Marcona with its iron mine and processing
Mining, plants
at San Juan and San Nicolas -
needed relatively small numbers of workers. Marcona
employed some 2,800 and Southern 4,000. But these had to be trained at considerable
expense to operate costly and The could not allow
complex equipment. companies
this training expense to leak away in high labour turnover. Moreover, they could not
aware that a few disaffected workers
help being might easily wreak enormous
damage
through inattention or Hence, a stable and contented workforce
sabotage. reasonably
was always of great to them. to attain it in part
importance They hoped by offering
very high wages and salaries by local standards; in part clean and commo
by setting up
dious mining camps fully equipped with modern excellent and
hospitals, schools, ample
social amenities; and in part by a of benevolent in labour
following policy paternalism
63

relations.*0
These firms had an additional advantage in that they did not have to dragoon
unwilling peasants into the mines. The camps, wage and benefit levels and generally
decent labour policies were 'pull* factors. So too was the nature of the work: open-pit
mine labour is not strenuous, takes place out of doors for those who man the
(except
concentrating plant and smelter), and entails few of the physical and health hazards
associated with mining below ground. There were also 'push* factors. By the mid-fifties,
a major from Puno was well under way. This
out-migration department department,
in south-eastern Peru along the Bolivian border and containing the westward extension
of the Bolivian altiplano, had long been one of the country's most backward. Land
maldistribution was extreme, the latifundios highly traditional; a local tradition of
peasant rebellion was very much alive. The region's tenuous equilibrium had been upset
by population growth, by the belated efforts of some of the latifundistas to capitalise
their holdings, and by the spread of modern political ideologies. Under this three-pronged
assault, much of the now 'excess' peasantry decided to try its luck elsewhere. Waves
of punenos flooded into cities and towns all over the southern half of the republic,
where they proceeded to construct the barriadas. Upon hearing of the mine construction
in the southern foothills and coast, they flocked there in force. Southern's and Marcona's
only recruiting problems were deciding whom to hire and damping down complaints
from disappointed aspirants.
Despite their general lack of education and experience, the punenos proved to be
eager learners, were hard workers, and adapted readily to industrial discipline. Unlike
their comrades to the north, the option of returning to a better life in the countryside
was foreclosed to them; deprived of that oudet, they were far more rapid in redefining
their social situation in purely proletarian terms. One measure of the difference is job
tenure: the percentage of Toquepala and Ilo workers who can claim 20 years' tenure,
that they were there at the very start of operations, is exceptionally high;
meaning
and it is becoming common for workers' sons to fill vacancies left by their fathers'
retirement. Another measure is a much greater preoccupation of Southern workers
with promotion and job categorisation than would have been detected at Cerro when
the latter was of a comparable age. A third is workers' attitudes toward the camps.
At Cerro, in spite of
deficiencies,
gross demands for improvement in family living con
ditions only began figure to
centrally in the unions' pliegos de reclamos (collective
-
bargaining proposals) in the early seventies by which time the proletariat there had
been in existence for over seventy years. At Southern, in contrast, the was
proletariat
less than ten years old when it started to press, through the unions, for certain key
improvements in camp conditions.
Yet, the Puno of resistance

tradition did not die out; for, Southern's policy of
benevolent created a sense of oppression no less real for being different
paternalism
from what was felt in Cerro. A principal source of resentment was the company's attempt
to rigidly control many non-work aspects of camp life, including physical movement
in and out of them. This was done in large part, naturally, to keep out 'political trouble
makers' and 'outside But it was also stimulated by paternalistic concerns.
agitators'.
For instance, if the company feared that itwould be held responsible if it allowed shrewd
local tradespeople to enter the camps and cheat its 'unsophisticated' workers. Southern
10 The Guggenheim family, founders and long-time owners of the American Smelting and Refining
Company (Southern's majority owner) were among the early bourgeois critics of the brutali
sation of labour. They practised benevolent paternalism in their U.S. and Mexican mines
from their beginnings at the turn of the century. To my knowledge, no American smelting
mine in Latin America has ever become a focal point of insurrectionary violence, as Cerro
did. See Marcosson (1949).
64

also believed that it was important to actively promote the adaptation of workers and
their families to urban conditions; its Division a very
of Social ran
intrusive
Welfare
acculturation programme that many workers regarded as an infringement of their fami
lies' privacy Another example of infringement of privacy was the surprise
rights.11
of apartments conducted the Townsites Division : demerits would be
inspections by
issued for such offences as unauthorised construction, overcrowding, use
improper
and maintenance of sanitary facilities, animals on the premises, etc.12
raising
This resentment corporate
overweening authority, even when wielded
against
for supposedly benign purposes, soon spilled over into resistance to work rules. Discipline
or
for obvious infractions, like unauthorised absence gross tardiness (there are no time
clock controls anywhere in Southern), is accepted as just; but workers have increasingly
demanded a voice in shift assignments, task organisation, job definition, promotion,
and the of Exactly as often in heavily unionised
appointment supervisors. happens
industries in the United States and Britain, changes in work rules instituted unilaterally
by management are invariably for that reason alone, of their effect
opposed irrespective
on workers' routine.
On the other hand, Southern workers have always protested by conducting very
orderly strikes. Unless
engaged in a sit-down or slow-down (much more common here
than in Cerro, as is the tactic of calling out only a certain work section which is espe
-
cially crucial to production signs, I believe, of a higher order of class sophistication),
-
striking workers usually simply stay at home or, since freedom of movement in and out
of the camps was restored, go off for visits. There are few pickets, almost no demonstra
tions; violence is essentially unheard of. Correspondingly, however, the compact network
of residential organisations, and the tendency of wives and children to form support
groups during labour

that Francisco
crises, Zapata describes as typical of mining camp
- are - are not
life13 they typical in the Cerro camps found. Indeed, residential life in
the Toquepala and Ilo camps is felt by Southern social service workers to be quite ano
mic; they report that the company itself has tried to foster block associa
improvement
tions, sports leagues, women's clubs and the like, but has encountered limited
only
success.
The process of unionisation also proceeded in Southern than it had
differently
in Cerro. Outside were never a factor. Instead, the newly hired workers dis
organisers
played from the first the genius for coordination of action that those who have written
on Peruvian squatter settlements have so frequently commented on.14 Unions were
formed to protest against the firm's announcement that about a third of the mine
only
and smelter construction workers were to be retained once the installations went into
regular operation. A strike was called to defend the fledgeling unions when the national
police, acting without having consulted company officials, arrested their leaders. But
Southern promptly recognised the unions without for government
waiting approval
and to bargain with all four of them
proceeded amicably (one each for empleados and
obreros at Toquepala and at Ilo). That was in 1960.
11 Goodsell (1974:169-174) describes the all-pervasive controls that existed in Toque

company
pala in the late 1960's. Among other things, the company a more complete com
enjoyed
munications monopoly than in any other Peruvian town' and made free use of it
'company
to indoctrinate workers in political and social values preferred officials. There
by corporate
was also - and, judging from my visit in 1978, still is - a great on the company's
preoccupation
part with social-sexual morality in the camps, as if the residents were not
responsible adults
and Southern were charged with supervision in loco parentis.
12 Interview with Peter Graves, Toquepala-Ilo townsite manager, June 22 and July 1, 1978.
Such surprise inspections have since ceased.
13 See Zapata (1980).
14 See Coller (1976), Dietz (1969) andMiehl (1976).
65

During their firstdecade, the Southern unions, though formally affiliated with the
CTP, were led entirely by their own people and zealously guarded their independence.
Strikes were called on
occasion, but relations with the company were predominantly
The were
unions successful in economic terms : the average
cooperative. spectacularly
basic obrero wage tripled, and a host of unprecedented fringe benefits was won.
Radical ideological ferment reached Southern only after the 1968 'revolution* had
- was no
begun that is, almost nine years later than Cerro. There observable change in the
nonviolent attitude of the rank and file; but, as in the case of the older North American
firm, the altered climate brought forth a new

group of younger, relatively well educated,
highly idealistic labour leaders. They discovered how, in the absence of other grievances,
to use the issues of authority and paternalism to build a militant discov
following. They
ered, too, that the very well paid Southern workers were financially able and willing to
tolerate long strikes if there were payoffs in wage and benefit increases. And, since
Southern had by now come to account for the lion's share of Peruvian copper exports
and was, thanks to high capital intensity, earning very sizeable profits, the military govern
ment was to end such strikes the requisite increases on the company.
happy by imposing
A Southern obrero, Victor Cuadros Paredes, and an attorney who served as an ad
visor to the CGTP,1^ Ricardo Diaz Chavez, eventually as the leaders of the radi
emerged
cals. They led the unions out of the CTP and into an affiliationwith the CGTP; took over
and reconstituted the FTMMP, whose strength has since been based primarily in Southern;
and later broke with the CGTP to establish the FTMMP as an autonomous political force.
The dream of Cuadros Paredes and Diaz Chavez has been to forge the FTMMP into a true
nationwide federation, whose economic leverage, were it a vehicle for solidarity among all
of the nation's mine, smelter and refinery workers, would obviously be enormous. There
were some momentary successes in 1973-1975, it was not long before
but centrifugal ten
dencies, fed by jealousies and ambition as well as by the isolation from each
personal
other of the various work groups, reasserted themselves. The FTMMP maintains a tie with
the UDP, a small 'Maoist* party that participated in the Left coalitions put together for
the 1978 and 1980 elections. But, as is usual in the mineria, UDP electoral strategy has
not been allowed to determine the action of the mine unions.1
15 There are Peruvian federations for industries or trades (e.g., the miners' federation, the
FTMMP), regions (usually a city or a department), and nature of residence (the federations
of the barriadas, or new urban settlements); some
local unions belong to several. The federa
tions are in turn grouped into no less than four national confederations, or centrals -which
also accept as members certain local unions without a federal affiliation. The four are: the
CGTP, currently the largest and a loose associate of the 'orthodox', or 'Muscovite', Communist
Party (PCP); the CTP, tightly controlled by the centre-Left APRA Party; the CNT, once as
sociated with the now defunct Christian Democratic Party; and the CTRP, which originated
in 1973 as the military regime's oficialista central. As if this were not enough, a number of
federations, among them the FTMMP, insist on remaining independent of all four centrals.
Out of the cacophony of institutions, only the CGTP, the CTP (less since 1968 than before),
and the FTMMP have been active in the mines. (The CTRP has some strength in Marcona
but is not otherwise a factor.)
16 Now that the system (union officers are granted a certain annual number of paid
licencia
leaves and travel expenses) has grown to the point where officials can work full time for the
union, labour careerism is becoming possible. The career of Victor Cuadros, who has since
suggests, further, that such a career can become a
become something of a force in the UDP,
- a neat reversal of the earlier efforts
stepping stone into professional politics by party organ
isers to form associated labour unions. Balbi and Parodi (1981: 3-9) complain that too many
union dirigentes view the superficial ideological indoctrination and slogan memorisation that
they receive from radical parties as a kind of personal advancement through 'intellectualisation'.
Note that both authors are active union advisors and are highly sympathetic to the Left cause.
66

We may conclude by noting that the installations which went on stream in the
-
1970's Southern's Cuajone mine, MINEROPERU's Cerro Verde open-pit mine and
-
the Ilo copper refinery have drawn their workforces directly from the barriadas of
the nearby cities and towns. Most of these workers have been urbanised for some time
and have semi-industrial
industrial or work Most have
previous experience. belonged
to labour unions before
coming to the mines and have organised new ones
promptly
to represent them as miners, both they and the employers seemingly regarding this as
a natural course of events. MINEROPERU's unions are affiliates of the FTMMP and the
UDP; the Southern unions at Cuajone, a close alliance with and
eschewing Toquepala
Ilo, have thus far remained
independent. Labour relations in all of these installations
-
are generally regarded as very good much better than at Toquepala and Ilo - although
there have been occasional strikes.
If Cerro's tightly cohesive camps and Southern's anomic ones at Toquepala and
Ilo represent two phases in the evolution of the camp as a unique factor in mining-based
proletarianisation, Cuajone and the MINEROPERU facilities are a third the

phase:
virtual disappearance of that factor's significance. The Cerro Verde mine
parastataPs
and its refinery are located very close to, respectively, second
Arequipa (Peru's largest
city) and Ilo town. Consequently, there are no camps; workers draw a housing allowance
in cash but otherwise form part of a generalised urban working class. Cuajone does
have a camp. However, Southern learned from past mistakes in structuring it. Pater
nalistic controls have been avoided, local tradespeople have been to set
encouraged
up businesses in facilities provided for them, large scale services have been contracted
out to national in order to eliminate an 'enclave' and traditional
providers appearance,
and popular entertainments have been
vigorously these means and
promoted. Through
by virtue of its proximity to the
city of Moquegua, has taken on the air of a
Cuajone
'normal' suburban-industrial town with a lively, multidimensional social life.
Let us sum up and draw some tentative conclusions. Each of the two
quickly
principal proletarian groups of the mining sector has its own
developed along path.
The central sierra group, while far older, does not show its age as a proletariat due to
the persistence for a long time of preproletarian features. Its origins in the peasantry
and its special culture of protest have turned out to be effective
for advancing weapons
the group's economic interests, when the national environ
particularly socio-political
ment has been to the peasant tradition. This has been so, by and
receptive large, since
the 'revolution' unleashed its wave of cultural nationalism. However, the group remains
isolated from the working class at large. There are signs that since Cerro's conversion
into a parastatal its new attention to housing,
enterprise, management's schools, etc.,
and to better communication has to undermine the workers' if not
begun populism,
their militance.1 7
necessarily
The Southern mine and smelter workers have of a less troublesome
partaken
and more rapid process of proletarianisation. are also well and militant
They organised
17 In its 1980 annual report, CENTROMIN claims to have completed 178 new apartment build
ings for workers since taking over for Cerro. The number of schools
operated by the enterprise
'has practically tripled' since 1973 and stands at 89; in the same period student enrolment
has jumped from 10,871 to 27,287. Guillermo Florez Pinedo, CENTROMIN's
president (in
terviewed August 23, 1981), believes that the enterprise's new closed-circuit television system
has been particularly beneficial in smoothing relations with the Workers. A special channel
is piped into all areas where television signals are received; it specialises in news about the
- its -
company activities, financial condition, etc. social and cultural events in the camps,
and so on. Naturally, it broadcasts the enterprise's point of view whenever there is a labour
dispute. Note, however, that the system is not monopolistic; Lima and Huancayo television
are also received.
67

in the pursuit of their core interests, but their protests are usually without much emo
tional fervour;
certainly, the treatment they have received from their employers is not
such as
to give rise to insurrectionary On tendencies.
the contrary : in terms of both
wages and benefits, they are the most privileged workers in the country. And as regards
the important of upward social mobility versus 'blocked ascent', Southern's
question
advancement and promotion practices, excellent school system, and university scholar
ship programme make it possible for miners to aspire realistically to middle class status
for their children and, sometimes, for themselves. These factors, along with workers'
preferences for retaining their privileged employment until retirement and theirphysical
separation from other industrial centres, keep the Southern group apart from the rest
of the national working class and from the central sierra group. Furthermore, the cul
tural differences between the two groups appear to have inhibited communication and
cooperation.
THE NATURE OF MINE WORKER'S MILITANCE
- - to
The foregoing suggests that appearances radical leadership rhetoric the con
trary notwithstanding, Peruvian miners have developed no more than a 'trade union
consciousness' focusing solely on economic gains for the immediate work group. If so,
this is a politically significant finding. For the workers have been subjected since 1968
to a steady barrage of Leninist propaganda and activity designed to overcome that limita
tion. Much of it, moreover, is delivered we have not by outsiders but by local
(as seen)
union leaders who are otherwise respected and admired.
Workers9Political Opinions
A broad survey of miners' political attitudes and beliefs might settle the question,
but the practical obstacles thereto have yet to be surmounted.18 The best that can be
done at present is to draw upon existing measures of relevant attitudes among empleados
and obreros in the mediana mineria (whose workers' class experiences tend to mirror
those in Cerro) and in the Cerro Verde mine ofMINEROPERU (whose workers aremost
like These opinion surveys are,unfortunately, noncomparable, since
Southern's).19
they were taken three years apart with different instruments. Still, the partial data
are useful, when combined with impressionistic evidence garnered at Southern.
especially
Workers in the medium mines were asked to select from a given list the group
or institution which they held most responsible for the 1974 increases in the cost of
living.Empleados and obreros agreed in assigning culpability primarily to the president
and Council of Ministers, secondarily to owners and the wealthy', and thirdly
'property
to 'middlemen'. But, while roughly equal percentages of empleados and obreros placed
the blame on the propertied classes, significantly more obreros than empleados chose
18 The principalobstacles appear to be the workers' suspicion of any such effort undertaken
by employers or by the state, and the reluctance of the unions and of academics (most of
whom, in Peru, are highly sympathetic toward the former) to assume the task. Could this
reluctance have to do with the fact that the Left has a vested interest in projecting an image
of proletarian radicalism?
19 The mediana mineria survey was taken in 1974, the Cerro Verde survey in 1977. The results
were made available to me on condition that the sources remain anonymous. I can verify,
however, that both are highly reliable. The first survey sampled ten per cent each of the sub
sector's empleados and obreros, balanced by employer, region and job function so as to be
representative. The second questioned the entire workforce.
68

to vest it in the political authorities.20 The data therefore imply that the least privileged
workers the 'superstructure', not the structure of class domination,
perceive political
as their enemy. In view of the radical nationalism espoused by many union leaders at the
time of the survey, it is noteworthy that insignificant percentages of both empleados
and obreros felt that the responsibility for rising prices lay with 'U.S. imperialism'.
alone were asked to describe their own class position and to state
Empleados
the half used as the criterion,
basis for their determination. Just under salary while
28 per cent opted for educational attainment. On these grounds, 57 per cent placed
themselves in the 'middle class', 12 per cent in the 'upper middle class', and 22 per
cent in the 'lower middle class'. Empleados also gave more emphasis than obreros to
non-economic, status aspects of work. When asked to state the most important improve
ment that their employer should make, nearly half of the obreros better
requested
housing, and a quarter higher wages. Empleados, in contrast, did not mention salary
at all, and only 10 per cent referred to housing. Instead, a third demanded
'improved
workplace organisation and better employee training', and a similar fraction requested
more educational programmes.
At Cerro workers were instructed to indicate whether or not
Verde, they under
stood the principal differences between the majorpolitical-economic systems of the
modern world, and those who did were encouraged to select their personal preference
from among 'capitalism', 'socialism' and 'communism'. Two thirds of the empleados
and 31 per cent of the obreros answered the first question in the positive. Within the
of more -
group 'knowledgeables', many empleados than obreros 76 per cent versus
57 per cent - to a preference
admitted among the systems. When those with admitted
preferences were asked to specify them, 34 per cent of the empleados and 8 per cent
of the obreros chose 34 and 69 per cent, respectively, selected 'socialism';
'capitalism';
no but 19 per cent of the obreros, for 'communism'; and 24 percent
empleados, opted
of the empleados, but no obreros, declined to state. The results that relatively
suggest
few obreros have a real of current their express
knowledge political
preference ideologies;
for alternatives to capitalism
probably therefore, comes
to a diffuse
closer,
representing
alienation from the existing
order than it does a strong commitment to something dif
ferent. Empleados, for their part, seem to have -
stronger preferences the likely out
come of more education. However, they are less alienated from the status quo and
less attracted to radical alternatives, all of which seems to reflect a belief that the present
system offers opportunities for socio-economic advancement.
In the absence of opinion survey data from the Southern installations, I asked fore
men and line supervisors I met many) to characterise
(of whom the political orientations
of workers under their authority as best I was one who to find
they could. felt unable
that more than a tiny minority of 'his' workers was committed to radical most
ideologies;
characterised the typical worker as generally to vote for the
apolitical, willing, perhaps,
Left but without great enthusiasm. This was confirmed in conversations with
impression
about twenty randomly selected workers. I was also privileged to spend most of a night in
conversation with a group of committed Marxist-Leninists involved in union
deeply
affairs at Ilo; they further confirmed the of rank and file apoliticism.
impression
20 Obrero data were tabulated only by region; overall averages had not been computed in the
version of the report that was shown to me. Those
blaming the president and Council of Min
isters ranged from 40.8 to 70.2 per cent; the data for the two most
populous mining regions
were 56.9 and 48.6 per cent. Those
blaming the propertied classes ranged from 17.5 to 29.2
per cent; 20.6 and 26.8 per cent in the two most populous regions. Those blaming 'middlemen'
ranged from 2.9 to 15.6 per cent. The empleado data did include overall averages. The per
centage of empleados (there were no significant regional differences) blaming the political
authorities, the propertied classes, and 'middlemen' was 33.7, 20.3 and 14.8 respectively.
69

Militance and Strikes
If we look at working class formation and action in the developed countries, we

encounter too many situations in which workers' readiness to undertake militant class
action to defend common interests bears little evident relation to the ideological orienta
tions of the workers or of the labour unions to which they belong. Has the working class
of the Peruvian mineria, apart from its ideological predilections, shown increasing mili
tance in action during the 1968-1980 period of military rule? The strike record should
provide the answer and should also permit a determination of the degree to which mine
workers have spearheaded the action of the working class at large.
Table 1
STRIKES IN PERU, 1967-1979
Number of strikes Number of strikers Manhours lost to strikes

A B A/A and B C D C/C and D EF E/E and F
Year mine other percent mine other percent mine other percent
1967 32 382 7.7 17,818 124,464 12.5 5,269,664 3,103,108 62.9
1968 21 343 5.8 9,426 98,383 8.7 2,825,376 552,425 83.6
1969 24 348 6.5 17,803 73,728 19.5 1,900,748 1,988,552 48.9
1970 66 279 19.1 56,205 54,785 50.6 4,325,853 1,456,003 74.8
1971 76 301 20.2 58,454 102,961 36.2 6,270,632 4,611,320 57.6
1972 33 376 8.1 16,657 113,986 12.7 958,008 5,373,008 15.1
1973 80 708 10.2 59,471 356,780 14.3 3,831,888 11,856,800 24.4
1974 38 532 6.7 27,433 335,304 7.6 1,878,148 11,534,892 14.0
1975 57 722 7.3 50,387 566,733 8.2 2,652,609 17,616,799 13.1
1976 29 411 6.6 31,505 226,596 12.2 572,228 6,249,996 8.4
- - ---
1977 n/a 234* n/a 406,461* n/a 6,543,352*
1978 53 311 14.5 48,596 1,349,791** 3.5 4,680,388 31,464,348** 12.9
1979 40 537 6.9 25,342 678,141 3.6 1,187,288 9,364,064 11.3
*Data *
for all strikes in the country, mine and other'.
**
Figures are inflated due to a two-day general strike in 1978.
Sources: Yearbook of Labor Statistics 1980, (1980); Las Huelgas en el Peru, 1957-1972, (1973);
unpublished data supplied by the Sociedad Nacional de Mineria y Petroleo.
Table 1 summarises Peruvian strike activity in the mines and elsewhere from 1967
to 1979. We see that there has been no secular toward an increase or decrease
tendency
in the of mine strikes in the national totals: although strikes in the mining
ponderance
sector became especially prominent in 1970-73 (and again, for reasons to be discussed
in 1978), they have generally accounted for a constant six to seven per
subsequently,
cent of the total. On the other hand, the 53,000 obreros and employed in
empleados
the sector21 represent two per cent of all wage earners; and I would guess (as there
only
21 Employment datum furnished by the Sociedad Nacional de Mineria y Petroleo. The datum
omits another 35,000-odd workers employed in the very small mines of the pequena mineria,
most of whom work only part time and few of whom are unionised. The contribution of the
latter subsector to GNP, exports, etc., is negligible.
70

has been no census of labour organisations on which to base a more precise estimate)
that less than one per cent of the nation's local unions are situated in the mineria. Miners
have formed
thus a disproportionate
share of strikers in each of these years. Still, this
share has
recently begun to decline. Other evidence suggests that the decline is due
mainly to an increase in strike frequency in the rest of the nonagricultural economy.

To the degree that the mine strikes of the early were
seventies perceived by the rest
of the working class as successful and hence encouraged the latter to engage more often
in job actions, the mine unions could be said to have spearheaded greater working class
militance. However, independent verification of a relationship between the two variables
is needed before that hypothesis can be accepted unequivocally.
In table 2 are shown three measures of strike size and intensity. Until the early
mine strikes tended to involve more workers each than did others - for the ob
1970's,
reason are
vious that mining workforces larger on the average than in any other industry.
But this tendency has reversed since 1975. Inasmuch as there has been neither great
industrial growth nor consolidation in 1975-1979, the change can only be attributed
to the increasing success of non-mining labour federations it should be
(particularly,
noted, such militant 'middle class* federations as those of teachers and bank employees)
in work the effort mounted
fomenting industry-wide stoppages. Contrariwise, by the
FTMMP since 1973-1974, when it came under radical control, to weld all of the local
mine unions into a national force has not borne visible fruit on the strike front.
single
Table 2
INDICATORS OF STRIKE INTENSITY, 1967-79
No. of strikers Manhours lost Manhours lost

per strike per strike* per striker
Year Mine Other Mine Other Mine Other
1967 556.8 325.8 164.7 8.1 296 25
1968 448.9 286.8 134.5 1.6 300
6
1969 741.8 211.9 79.2 5.7 107
27
1970 851.6 196.4 65.5 5.2 2777
1971 769.1 342.1 82.5 15.3 107
45
1972 504.8 303.2 29.0 14.3 47 58
1973 743.4 503.9 47.9 16.7 33 64
1974 721.9 630.3 49.4 21.7 34 68
1975 884.0 784.9 46.5 24.4 31 53
1976 1086.4 551.3 19.7 2715.2
18
1977** n/a 1737.0 n/a 28.0 n/a 16
1978 916.9 4340.2 88.3 101.2
9623
1979 633.6 1262.8 29.7 4717.4
14
* In thousands
** are for all strikes, mine and 'other'
Data
Source: Computed by the author from data in Table 1
Mine strikes have always entailed greater losses of labour time. This used to be
due, once more, to differences in the size of work units but now must be ex
average
laid to a than duration of mine - as
clusively longer average strikes the data for labour
time lost per striker demonstrate. The latter also reveal a clear secular trend
graphically
toward declining militance, a trend in evidence the period.22 It is not con
throughout
22 This phenomenon was first observed and commented upon by Zapata (1980).
71

fined to mine workers, however.
Moments of militance in the mines, as in the seventies, coincide
increasing early
with similar tendencies in the working class at large. The implication is that these have
to do with events of national scope.
Table 3
STRIKE INTENSITY INDICATORS BY ENTERPRISE, 1969-1979
Manhours lost per strike (in thousands) Manhours lost per striker
Cerro/ Marcona/ restof Cerro/ Marcona/ rest of

Centromin Southern HierroP. sector Centromin Southern HierroP. sector
1969 169.8 315.3 0.0 25.3 95 146 0 93
1970 92.9 58.2 76.1 34.9 66 818170
1971 82.1 68.8 215.5 73.1 69 99 107 162
1972 4.1 48.2 0.0 16.5 170
31 86
1973 131.0 72.9 110.8 35.0 1681
91 75
1974 282.5 186.2 0.0 30.5 24 79 0 216
1975 59.8 105.9 0.0 25.8 750
4656
1976 147.2 26.7 0.0 11.3 160
22 17
1977 92.6 54
101.6
1978 85.2* 117 92*
50.6
1979 21.7*96 32*
* Data are for all enterprises Southern

except
Sources: Per table 1; also, Southern's consolidated declarations for 1977-1979, filed with the
Ministerio de Energia y Minas.
Table 3, which
partially breaks down by enterprise two indicators of mining sector
strike intensity, permits us to correlate militance with the working class groups defined
earlier. The trend toward decreasing militance (it appears most vividly in the right half
of the table) is here seen to be especially in evidence among the Cerro group.Since the
1974 nationalisation, CENTROMIN workers have become less militant on the average
than those of the mediana mineria, who account for the bulk of the 'rest of the sector'.
Given that the trend firstbecomes plain in 1973, when the impending expropriation of
the firm was already public knowledge, it would appear that the transfer of the enterprise
to national control has definitely helped to reduce strike intensity. Sceptics might argue
that the state, as employer, has repressed the labour movement more strenuously than
before, or at least that it has lowered the payoffs to militance by firmly resistingwage
demands. data, to be examined shortly, refute the second accusation. There is a
Wage
of truth to the first; but was felt after1976, was never
grain repression only seriously
extreme and affected the entire mining sector. More important, it seems to me,
equally
has been the quick the new parastatal
action management to clear Cerro's 'social debt*
by
and to improve its communications with workers.23
Workers at Southern Peru a greater degree of militancy. It is cy
Copper display
clical, peaking at four- to five-year intervals with little apparent long term change. A
23 Florez Pinedo (see note 17) claims that CENTROMIN's television communication system is
undermining the old habit of wives' supporting and participating in miners' protests. Instead,
they hear the broadcast company viewpoint while at home and urge their husbands not to
strike. Such behaviour has always been typical at Southern.
72

comparison with the near-passivity of the Marcona (HIERROPERU, after its 1974
workers, whose backgrounds and working conditions are similar, suggests
nationalisation)
that workers employed by a very profitable foreign firm (which Southern is) perceive
much greater opportunities for gains than do those employed by one which is neither.24
out at Southern
(I have already pointed that the very high wages enable its workers
to withstand long strikes better than any other working class group.) In view of what
has been learned about the different class formation histories of the Cerro and the South
ern-Marcona work groups, it can only be concluded that militance in the Peruvian mines
no longer has anything to do with political parties or outside direction, with populist
causes the disruption of traditional peasant life by advancing or with
(i.e., capitalism),
gross oppression. It must be regarded, rather, as a natural outgrowth of proletarian
maturity.
'ECONOMISM' AMONG THE WORKING CLASS ?
'Economistic' class action is predicated on the that the principal in

assumption
terest of the working class is to augment its share of the economic It is therefore
pie.
relatively unconcerned with challenging the structures of political domination and social
control which keep the class in its subordinate condition; and itmay entail an acceptance
of bourgeois strategies for enlarging the pie. That key elements of the working class
incline toward 'economistic' patterns of action does not mean that bourgeois hegemony
exists. It does mean that the attainment of bourgeois is possible,
hegemony provided
that the latter class can do two : meet a satisfying of the 'economistic'
things (1) portion
demands without excessive sacrifice of its own interest in power and control; (2) also
without such a sacrifice, accomodate within its own world view the existence and ac
- -
tivities of those indigenous institutions labour unions, Left political etc., which
parties,
the working class has constructed and deems essential for its self-protection. The actions
of corporate mining enterprises in Peru since 1968 appear to conform to the second
requirement. What of the first ?
The Evolution of Real Wages and Benefits
Table 4 describes the recent evolution of average real wages 2^ for the nonferrous
metal-mining industry as a whole; for Southern; for Cerro/CENTROMIN; and for the
mediana mineria. Also indicated, for purposes of comparison, is the average nonagri
cultural wage for metropolitan Lima. Most mine workers a steady increase
experienced
in real income until the late 19 70's. Wages thereafter came under downward pressure
as inflation accelerated. Nonetheless, miners held their own better than did Lima work
ers : from 32 per cent in 1968, the average sector remuneration rose to
greater mining
62 per cent greater by 1971 and was still 54 per cent greater in 1977. Under parastatal
Cerro's have attained one of their most -
management, employees finally cherished goals
24 Southern has earned a profit in each year of operation except 1975; total profits for 1971-1980
were $ 393.5
million after taxes. Marcona, in contrast, lost in four of the eight years
money
immediately prior to its nationalisation. The nationalisation itself resulted in a two-year legal
battle with the company and with suppliers holding delivery contracts, because of which very
little iron ore was sold in that period. Since 1976 HIERROPERU has been prevented low
by
iron ore prices and limited dependence from returning to profitability.
25 Wages is defined to include : basic wage or salary; overtime pay; shift
differentials; holiday
pay and Sunday pay (dominical) of obreros; vacation pay; and deferred payments -
employer
contributions to social security and employer set-asides for future payment of time-of-service
indemnities.
73

wage parity with the more capital intensive Southern. Even miners employed by the
small, mostly locally owned firms of the mediana mineria have advanced economically
more than industrial workers in general.
Table 4
INDEX OF REAL WAGES IN PERUVIAN MINING AND OTHER INDUSTRY, 1967-79*

=
(100 average wage for all nonferrous metal-mining in 1967)
All
Cerro/ Medium Other
Year Mining Southern CENTROMIN Mining Industry**
100
1967 219 67118
100
1968 217 117
6776
105
1969 216 128
7283
1970
122 264 87
15082
1331971 280 154 100 82
1481972 335 164 114 96
157 1973 402 187 109 108
153 1974 412 190 102 106
164 1975 353 189 123 102
1261976 424 255 104 92
1261977 335 239 109 81
1978
221 107
201 70
1979 207 61
*
Money wages (see note 25 to main text) deflated by the consumer price index for metro
politan Lima.
**
Average nonagricultural wage for metropolitan Lima.
Source: Computed by the author from information contained in company consolidated declara
tions and annual reports as well as from data supplied by the Sociedad Nacional de Mineria
y Petroleo and published in Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1980 (1980).
The situation at Southern is actually not as bleak from the viewpoint of worker
interests as seems to be the case. For, the table does not fully reflect the value of fringe
benefits won there. These include various monthly allowances contingent on family
size and circumstances; paid-up life insurance; disability bonuses and payments to supple
ment national social
security benefits; expenses upon or retiring;
paid moving quitting
free round-trip air fare for vacations to any point in Peru; 95 college scholarships for
workers' children; and full payment of educational expenses incurred by workers who
obtain a certificate of completion from a professional or technical school.
Another economic advance that cannot show up in the wage
data consists in
direct and indirect company contributions to the unions, which relieve the workers
of responsibility for certain costs that would otherwise come out of their pay envelopes.
This process of employer subsidisation of the unions is farthest along at Southern but
is being imitated elsewhere. Officers of the Southern unions receive a total of 2,140
- in
unrestricted man-days of annual licencia up from 340 man-days with restrictions
1970. Federation and confederation officers to the empleado unions are
belonging
granted permanent leaves with full pay. All officers are awarded a company-paid life
and accident insurance policy with a face value of $ 1 million (in 1978). The company
has been to make $326,000 in cash contributions to the unions' building funds
required
74

and to donate construction materials and labour; it also pays the unions $19,500 per
year in operating and upkeep expenses for their libraries. And, as part of a move to
improve relations with student groups, the unions have obtained a company donation
of $ 142,000 to the universities inTacna and Arequipa.
The wage obtained the mining
by 'labour aristocracy' are consistent with
gains
FitzGerald's conclusion that, compared to some of the larger, more developed countries
of Latin America, Peru in this period showed the least shift of national income toward
the top two deciles of the income distribution and the biggest growth in the share cap
tured by themiddle four.26 The military regime did little to improve the incomes of the
least mobilised sectors; but it was no supporter of upper class
poorest, popular privilege
and did not stand in the way of economic gains by powerful labour groups. It should
further be mentioned in the latter connection that in mining, much larger proportionate
gains were realised by the less
privileged obreros than by the better-off
empleados.
If one assumes that class cohesion is in part of wage an inverse
differentials function
between various working class elements, then the mining proletariat is not doing much
to promote cohesion. On the other hand, cohesion within the mining proletariat has
somewhat increased. (I say 'somewhat' because the geographical cleavage remains.)
The Question of Control over theEnterprise
Were mine workers' class consciousness of a nature that would lead them to take
serious issue with the division of power and authority in the capitalist enterprise, the
Workers' Community System, instituted in 1971, presented them with one possible
vehicle for expressing such a concern. The Workers' Community was an enterprise reform
combining co-ownership with co-management, both to be gradually attained through

reinvestment of a portion of company profits in labour shares held all workers in
by
common.
None of the medium or so far as I have been able to
large mining companies,
determine, ever resorted to borderline or actual fraud in order to evade their obliga
- as
tions under the system happened often in manufacturing. In fact, some of
enough
them have sent Community officers to attend courses
in accounting and business manage
ment. Nevertheless, the mine unions, to regard the system as a cooptative
choosing
device intended to undercut their and promote -
appeal labour-management cooperation
in the minds of the generals, it assuredly was -
which, denounced it and ordered a boycott
of its activities.27 The boycott was fairly well honoured for the first two years. Then,
in 1974, workers started to receive very sizeable distributions from the high industry
profits of the previous year (world metals prices skyrocketed in 1973 and remained
high into As soon as that occurred, interest in Community assemblies and officer
1975).
ships quickly increased. The unions decided not to buck the trend. It was a wise move,
since worker loyalty to organised labour in no way diminished; Community assemblies,
and the actions of Community-appointed directors on the boards,
companies' managing
26 :
FitzGcrald, (1979 140-141). The other countries are Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.
But if Peru is unique in that the income distribution has been shifting toward the middle
sectors, it is also the case that these have more catching-up to do : in 1973-1974, only in Brazil
did the top five per cent have a larger share of the total national income.
27 Peruvian academic writing on the Workers' Community mirrors the union attitude; see e.g.
Pasara and Santisteban (1973), Pasara et al. (1974) and Alberti, Santisteban and Pasara (1977).
It is possible that in this matter, too, the union and the academic view are not coincidentally
related - which is not, I hasten to add, a disparagement of that view. The question is merely
whether the unions reached their position or were influenced by academics'
independently
analyses. The answer is not known.
75

simply became a parallel avenue to the unions for advancing the same class concerns.
These concerns, it is plain, have nothing to do with management under
properly
stood, i.e., with exercising the real decision-making power of corporate capital. Of the
many corporate managers whom I interviewed, not one complained that the Commu
nity's representatives were weakening or undercutting in the enter

capital's authority
Instead, their complaints centred on the
slowing down of directoral business
prise.
-
that occurred whenever Community representatives asked for financial information
information which, in management's view, was invariably used to strengthen union
negotiating positions at bargaining time.

The only non-economic use to which the workers have put the Community is
to bring personnel matters to the attention of top corporate management. Community
appointed directors, acting on behalf of petitioning workers, solicit and
reassignments
promotions, enter objections to the actions of line supervisors, and so forth. Managers
are happy to have this input, as it gives them a chance to defuse that might
problems
otherwise develop into a cause for the unions;
celebre but they would vastly prefer
to see it take place at levels well below that of the board of directors. As for the workers,
they have made plain at Community assemblies, in which they participate democratically,
that this is the function that they want their representatives to perform.
After eight years of experience with the Workers' Communities, the military
regime realised that the system had made no observable difference in the character
of labour-management relations but was acting as a disincentive to new capital invest
ment. Therefore, the system was altered in 1978 to reduce the maximum ownership
stake that workers could attain from 50 to 33 per cent, thereby guaranteeing that private
capital would not lose majority control. One year later the system was modified much
more drastically to eliminate its communitarian aspects and circumscribe its comanage
ment function. Shares of capital stock are now distributed to workers as individual
these acciones laborales may be traded on the Lima Stock
property; freely Exchange.
Just as one would expect, many workers sell them as soon as received, preferring to
have the ready cash. Worker-directors no longer sit on corporate boards, in many cases;
worker input in management affairs may be implemented instead via labour-management
comites de gestion, whose power is far less under the law than that of a board of direc
tors. The institution these wholesale in the system brought not a whim
of changes forth
per of protest from labour leaders orfrom the rank and file. The typical worker prefers
a stock certificate negotiable for currency to an abstract share in the exercise of a dimly
perceived authority.
THE POLITICAL POWER OF ORGANISED MINE LABOUR
Labour and National Power
-
During the first seven years of the Peruvian 'revolution' that is, during the presi
-
dential incumbency of Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado the regime consistently favoured
the wage demands of the principal mine labour groups. This was done through expanded
use of the state's power to impose wage settlements. As soon as it became obvious to
the mine unions that the government was on their side in matters of pay and benefits,
direct collective between labour andmanagement into a pro
bargaining degenerated
exercise of content. Unions framed extreme demands and refused com
forma empty
promise, expecting that the labour ministry would ultimately grant them much of what
sought. likewise avoided as any company offer

they really Companies compromise,
was now regarded merely as an indicator of the lower limit of what the traffic would
bear. Thus, labour relations in the mines became totally politicised.
76

The military's initial favouritism toward mine labour is explained by the following:
1. Nationalism. The were nationalists by conviction and shared the percep

generals
tion of all Peruvian nationalists that the foreign resource had been
companies pillaging
the country's resource base for many years. Hence, they were not about to do anything
to uphold the short term interests of the large foreignmining firms against those of a
mobilised and politically vocal group of local citizens. In addition to ideological con
viction, the militares were basing their legitimacy in power on nationalism, on wide
spread public disgust with the entreguismo of previous governments. That the regime
did seek acceptance and legitimacy and did not wish to rule by force alone is demon
strated by its entire record of reform.
2.Social Justice. Not all of the generals were cynical power seekers or techno
cratic elitists; a few, at least, sincerely believed it their duty to help uplift the down
trodden. General Velasco himself, whose humble are well known, may have been
origins
one of these. Another was Gen. Fernandez Maldonado, the minister of mines
Jorge
under Velasco, who had imbibed the doctrines of Social Christianity. Among his earliest
official acts were the disarming of private mining-camp the prohibition of com
police,
pany interference with free movement of persons in and out of the camps, and ordering
the removal of guards and barriers around expatriates' camp quarters. Later on he in
sisted on incorporating into the 1971 Mining Code and its supporting regulations the
first detailed specifications for minimum working conditions and camp facilities in
the mines, and under his a decree-law
leadership setting standards for housing accomoda
tion was enacted. He was particularly sympathetic to the Cerro miners and their 'social
debt'.
3. Bonanza development. The strategy of bonanza development entailed using
the mining industry to underwrite a broader industrial in both its eco
development
nomic and political aspects. Inter alia, the local share in mining of value
and added
refining was to be increased systematically; linkages between mining and other industries
were to be multiplied and enlarged; and mining revenues were to be used in part for co
opting and pacifying restive mobilised elements associated with industrial labour which
a danger to the status quo -
would otherwise pose thereby relieving new industrial capital
of this burden. increases served all of these objectives : the first and third
Wage directly
and obviously; the second in that better
paid miners would add to the market for domes
tically produced manufactured goods. At the same time, efforts to accelerate the pace
of development pressed even more heavily on the balance of payments and on the state's
finances and international borrowing all of which were underwritten
capacity, by mining
revenues. Therefore, strikes and stoppages that interfered with mine had
production
to be ended at any cost.
quickly
4. Antiaprismo. Peruvian The had a tradition of uncompromising
military opposi
tion to the APRA party; it dated from a 1932 massacre of an army garrison by aprista
insurgents. Military seizures of power in 1948, 1962 and 1968 were motivated partly
by a desire to forestall probable APRA successes in forthcoming presidential elections.
-
Up until 1968, most of the party's strength despite repeated flirtationswith the Right,
it was the only well institutionalised not under -
party oligarchic control lay with the
more advanced and better sectors of the working class and with the lower
organised
elements of the middle class, which are also unionised. that would
heavily Anything
undercut aprista appeal to organised labour would weaken it.
seriously
All of the mine unions recognised the military disposition forwhat itwas.
They
therefore concluded that they should station themselves well to the left of the regime,
striking longer and more often to force accomodation on issues but not
pay persisting
for ideological reasons. These tactics, as we saw, were successful. More than
eminently
77

that, they protected the labour movement from cooptation.28 The unions cooperated
at firstwith the CGTP, which, having reconstituted itself threemonths before the mili
tary takeover, was the earliest labour beneficiary of the new regime's steadfast opposition
to the CTP. Later, however, when the PCP attempted to become the principal pro-regime
political party and so ordered the CGTP to moderate itsmilitancy, the mine unions
broke with it.
These happy circumstances soured in 1975. Falling metal prices translated into
company and made the companies more resistant than ever to

falling mining profits
union wage demands. In August a seriously ill Velasco was ousted from office and re
a former minister
placed by Gen. Francisco Morales Bermudez, economy whose policy
became one of restoring the weakened economy to health by slowing the
emphasis
pace of reform and reassuring private capital. But the same metal price plunge threw the
balance of payments into deficit and drained the nation's foreign currency reserves,
while food
imports increased to feed the growing urban labour force. Moreover, food
was -
being sold below cost by state monopolies another cooptative benefit of bonanza
-
development and these subsidies helped to unbalance the state budget. The result was
domestic inflation; hitherto much rarer in Peru than in many of the more industrialised
Latin American countries, it would reach runaway proportions by the end of the de
cade.
Had the regime tried actively to mobilise popular support during the halcyon
days of radical reform, it might have been able to ride out the storm sheltered by appeals
to patriotism and national sacrifice. As it was, the appeals were offered but fell on the
deaf ears of a demobilised apathetic public whose
and every attempt to organise politically
had been The only alternative was repression. Early in 1976 another wave
squelched.
of mine strikes broke out as miners strained to protect their purchasing power in the
face of inflation by winning extraordinary wage increases. The regime responded by
declaring a state of emergency in the mining sector and forbidding all strikes therein.
On July 1, 1976 a national state of emergency was put into effect, and six weeks there
after the strike prohibition was made universal.
Yet, the government knew that it was riding a tiger in employing these tactics
against mine labour, and it proceeded with caution. Workers in the large mines, who
could best afford the loss of back pay, regularly defied the strike prohibition; but for
the occasional and brief detention of
leaders, no effort was made to punish them (with
one which turned outdisastrously for the regime). Importantly, fear of
exception,
the miners' reaction undoubtedly stiffened the spine of the government in its negotiations
with the IMF, which was on the imposition of antipopular, deflationary eco
insisting
nomic measures as its price for aiding Peru in its international financial difficulties.
In this the power of the mine unions was latently but effectively, on behalf
deployed,
of the interests of the whole working class and much of the middle class. Of course,
the worsening economic situation made it impossible for the government to resist the
IMF forever. Its resistance collapsed in May 1978, and the package of measures demanded
the international agency was reluctantly enacted. Labour answered with a very effec
by
28 As an example : in 1970 a Cerro marcha de sacrificio, billed as a demonstration against 'im

perialism' as well as in support of miners' wage demands, was granted full police protection
was set up for the marchers, in the
by the government; an encampment upon reaching Lima,
working class district of San Martin de Porras; and a round of visits with President Velasco
and lesser dignitaries was arranged. This was the first time ever that such a demonstration
had been so received, and the purpose in doing so is evident. Yet the miners refused all com
promises offered by the labour ministry, threatened to remain in Lima indefinitely, and even
tually raised their demands even higher than those initially announced. The government had
to cede on all points.
78

tive general strike on May 22 and 23.29 The government reimposed a state of emer
gency (it had lapsed several months before), but there were no mass arrests or wholesale
firings.
The year 1978 also witnessed the regime's decision to turn power back to civilians,
with the election of a constituent assembly to write a new constitution and
beginning
ending in 1980 with the election of a president, a national legislature, and local officials.
In order to prepare for a smooth transition as well as to seek the cooperation of all
sectors in resolving the economic problem, Morales Bermudez began a round of meetings
with representatives of political parties, property owners' associations, professional
and labour. All of the centrals participated, as did the FTMMP and other
guilds organised
important federations. Organised labour's participation in these discussions deserves
underscoring, because it was the first time in the nation's history that union representa
tives were summoned to the presidential palace in order to be consulted on affairs of
- some as delegates
national import. Labour representatives participated too elected by
as witnesses or consultants -
the Left, others in the activities of the constituent assembly.
It incorporated into the new constitution guarantees of great significance to the popular
classes : the to political the right to a basic level of material welfare, and
right liberty,
the right to organise and act collectively in defence of their material interests.3**
A logical next advance would be for labour and other key economic groups to be
brought into formal, regular consultation with state authorities in the making of high
-
economic policy what the British call 'tripartism'. The way to such an advance was
opened by
hyperinflation. The 'new bourgeoisie' of corporate managers and industrial
entrepreneurs, which has become the dominant force in state and economy in the wake
of the 'revolution', wants and needs civilian rule to stabilise and survive.31 It recognises,
as do elected officials whose careers are at stake, that this is unlikely to happen if the
work stoppage remains labour's only tool for protecting its incomes inflation.
against
Consequently, the government has set up a Comision Tripartida of business, labour and
state representatives to look for ways in which wages and salaries be indexed
might
automatically to the cost of living. Already the Tripartite Commission shows of
signs
evolving into a permanent consultative with an institutionalised economic
body policy
29 The mine unions made sure that their power would be felt in the organisation of the 1978
general strike. They sabotaged an earlier strike call by the CGTP and the PCP in January by
refusing their cooperation. When the general strike finally did occur, it was plain that it went
ahead successfully only because the miners gave it full support.
30 Allowing the unions to achieve this level of influence held an for the state as well.
advantage
Having hereby shown that it was not anti-union per se> it freed itself to take action against
the most extreme radical leadership at Southern. When a strike was called there in
early 1979
and seemed likely to sabotage the national economic recovery effort, troops were sent to
occupy the Toquepala and Ilo camps. Fifty-five workers were arrested, and 185
organisers
of the strike were ordered dismissed from their jobs. Police agents visited every miner and his
family at home, warning of another 110 scheduled dismissals if the strike did not end at once.
However, there was no violence, and those arrested were
shortly freed. Workers in other mines
did not answer an FTMMP call for a nation-wide strike in support of Southern -
which they
probably would have done a year or so before. The well paid Southern workers did not enjoy
the sympathy of the rest of the working class, which was
suffering far more from the effects
of inflation. Nevertheless, they would have come to the former's aid if they had
perceived
the government's move as an attack on mine unionisation as such.
31 Its confidence was undoubtedly increased by the 1980 electoral victory of President Belaunde
and his Accion Popular party, which most closely represents 'new bourgeois' political aims.
But my interviews with mine managers and entrepreneurs throughout 1977-1978 made crystal
clear that they all wanted a rapid transition to civilian governance without to see
waiting
what the electoral outcome would be.
79

making role.32
Let us consider the meaning of these events. The military of
regime's policies
bonanza development and cooptation elevated the importance of the mining industry
in the scheme of development and provided the mine unions with greater political and
economic than they had ever previously enjoyed. This used
leverage they effectively
for narrowly self-interested ends, in the process retaining their autonomy and resisting
cooptation. A worsening economy and the onset of inflation then eroded many of the
wage gains of the earlier period. But in the process they drewlabour mine
directly into
the arena of national politics and economic policy making, since only there is there
any for workers to overcome inflation's effects on their pocketbooks. The auto
hope
nomy of organised mine labour, a product of the manner in which the workers of the
sector coalesced as a class, ensured that labour would have to be taken in ona fairly
equal basis. What has begun to

emerge, then, is a form of 'societal corporatism', to
use Philippe - one
Schmitter's terminology the sort of institutional role for labour that
-
finds in the European social democracies rather than the authoritarian 'state corpo
ratism' of other Latin American countries where the labour movement has a history
of subjugation to state cooptation and control.
-
I would suggest that the disunity in the labour movement the divisions within
-
the mining proletariat and between it and the rest of the working class have propitiated
this outcome by calming bourgeois fears of a massive, coordinated challenge to the
capitalist order. (Implicit also is the further suggestion that, if this outcome is viewed
as desirable and in of the other choices that realistically existed, one
progressive light
must be thankful for the failure of the radical parties in the 1980 election!) On the
other hand, such an outcome would not have occurred were the 'new bourgeoisie' unable
or unwilling to accomodate to a greater political presence of organised labour within
the existing system.
Labour and Community Power
The experience of the mine labour movement under the Peruvian 'revolution'
reminds that a proletariat
us which chooses to play a national power game may well
do so primarily for the purpose of securing its economic interests. Mine labour in Peru
made in that it elbowed its way into the national structure
important political gains
of power. But it was not motivated by a desire to lead or participate in the framing
of a viable socialist alternative to that structure, nor even to accelerate the pace of reform
set by the
regime. It sought and attained a measure of power, rather, because its eco
nomic concerns had come to be bound up in centralised economic policy making and
- - as as in economic events
innovations of the 'revolution' well of national
planning
scope.
It can be that a proletariat to develop a real capability for political
argued desiring
and hegemony, one looking toward the eventual supercession of bourgeois
leadership
domination, can best begin by involving itself in issues of community power. With spe
cific reference to the situation of mine labour, two reasons may be adduced.
First, there is ample for mass participation in the organisation of

opportunity
the mundane social life of the mining camp, and such participation is a sensible alter
native to social on the employer. Becoming active in quotidian camp affairs

dependence
would inculcate habits of participation and responsibility, helping to overcome (especially
in the central the residual effects of centuries of peasant subservience; create a
sierra)
sense of personal effectiveness; and fortify class cohesion and solidarity. Were
greater
32 See Torres (1981).
80

-
the unions to show the way which, with their full treasuries, professional leaders and
are now -
organisational infrastructure, they in a position to do they would reap the
benefits in greater rank and file allegiance and enhanced political capabilities. These
proposals happen to dovetail nicely with the decline of paternalism and the new-found
desire of the mining companies to relieve themselves of many of the routine burdens
and costs of camp operation.
Second, centralisation of political power under the military, together with the
'revolutionary' reinforcement of the state apparatus, facilitated bourgeois domination.

The urban no restrained by the is physically present at
bourgeoisie, longer oligarchy,
the seats of power and has few competitors for political influence at the top. Barring
a social revolution, any dispersion of power from enhanced local
resulting political
capabilities thus represents a check
the preeminent on of the bourgeoisie secured
position
with the aid of the central state. the development
Furthermore, of a high and effective
local political profile by the labour movement may be necessary to any worker-peasant
alliance against the system of domination. If Zeitlin and Petras are correct in their assess
ment of the workers' role in Chilean politics, such an alliance was possible there, not
because peasants became proletarianised, but because they came to share in a socialist
political culture across class lines. That culture was propagated radical unions
cutting by
which were very in the affairs of the mining
visible districts and which set examples
of organisational skills,
political competency and participatory
citizenship.33
It is with regret that I report, on the basis of inteviews and personal observation
in the camps, that self-help activities are conspicuous by their absence. At Toquepala
and Ilo the prevailing attitude seemed to be that anything having to do with the camps
was Southern's : the workers and labour leaders with whom I spoke com
responsiblity
plained about the lack of this or that facility, but they were astonished by the suggestion
that they might take a direct hand in providing it. Block and neighbourhood associations
and were to
sport leagues beginning appear. However, they had been organised by the
Division of Social Welfare in the face of considerable and their survival as self
apathy,
sustaining entities was by no means assured. A similar reluctance to become involved
prevails in the central Sierra among the miners of CENTROMIN and the mediana mi
neria.^^ There it is reinforced by the workers' to view the camp
lingering tendency
as a temporary abode and to identify with their of Further an
socially places origin.
thropological research is needed to reveal the reasons the Southern miners'
underlying
relative anomie. In the meantime, it is apparent only that a clear is being
opportunity
missed.
CONCLUSIONS
A common argument among is that transnational resource cor

dependencistas
porations conspire with 'dependent' Third World elites to keep wages down and the
working class politically weak. The resultant is held to be
'superexploitation' necessary
to the profitability of these since 'the prices of their products in the world
enterprises,
markets . [are] a fixed datum to the individual companies .'35 Coercive controls
on labour further the economic of the less whose
exploitation developed countries,
bargaining strength vis-a-vis the transnational is sapped inter alia, the absence of a
by,
33 See Petras and Zeitlin (1967) and Zeitlin and Petras (1969).
34 Morello (1976) finds that 41 per cent of the resident population of the CENTROMIN camps
participate in no social activities of any kind in their camp; 21 per cent in
participate only
sports; and 6 per cent attend holiday celebrations.
35 See Baran (1957 :
197).
81

powerful and effective labour movement.3** Worse, coerced labour, introduced or rein
forced by the country's insertion into the capitalist 'world economy', consigns the
nation to political subservience as a member of the world 'periphery'.37
This study reveals that, if these ideas had applicability to an earlier stage of Peru
vian development, they have been rendered obsolete by later events. The 1901 arrival
of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation did articulate Peru more firmly with international
capitalism and was accompanied by the large scale 'superexploitation' of coerced, pre
proletarian labour. The problem for dependencistas is that the degree of articulation
expanded many times with the later entry of the modern transnational, Southern Peru
Copper and Marcona. Yet the modes and relations of production which they introduced
led to the formation of a true industrial proletariat, cut off from its peasant origins,
protected by its work skills and by high mining technology from the pressures of an
'industrial reserve army', and able to organise for the defence of its economic interests
without outside assistance.
The discipline and organisational capabilities of this new proletariat made coercive
controls counterproductive, and in
the mining camps they were progressively relaxed
or eliminated. The new class secured extremely high local re
working (by standards)
munerations. It overcame one of the debilitating divisions within its ranks by severely
reducing the economic differential between empleados and obreros, although it was
less successful in eliminating the status differential or in overcoming cleav
geographical
ages. It fortified the labour unions of the sector and made them independent of middle
class party leadership. It resisted attempts at cooptation via the Workers' Community
system, which it utilised instead in its own way for its own purposes while ignoring
a comanagement feature that did not answer to its self-defined needs.
The political regime and the 'new bourgeoisie' lacked both the power and the
inclination to adopt a policy of repression of mine labour. Meeting labour's wage de
mands served the long term interest of both of these entities in bonanza development
at a price borne mostly by foreign corporations. The latter grumbled but had no choice
in the end but to recognise the sovereign authority of the Peruvian state to determine
labour policy. Southern Peru Copper was not deterred by that policy from proceeding
with its Cuajone mine. Although there was not space to document the fact here, do
mestic mining capital, too, took
important forward strides despite rising mine wages.38
Without conscious but urged by its internal contradictions as well
design along
as by uncontrollable external events, the military regime promoted the institutionalised
incorporation of organised labour into the system of power. The regime successfully
weakened the APRA, until then the main popular political force, and thereby created
a vacuum on the Left for others to fill. But it also deprived itself of mobilised popular
support, since to do otherwise would have risked the elite cohesiveness of the military
establishment. The 'new bourgeoisie', though the chief beneficiary of the 'revolution',
its distance from the military and withdrew its tacit support once inter
wisely kept
national economic made manifest the consequences of the regime's eco
developments
nomic With labour relations already politicised and with national anti
mismanagement.
become a necessary preoccupation of the powerful mine unions,
inflationary policy
labour's incorporation was simply unavoidable.
In other words, the military and its civilian successor must be regarded
regime
as autonomous', in the current That is to say, they serve the end
'relatively jargon.
of domination and control but do so by remaining independent of short
bourgeois
36 See Barnet and Muller : 138).

(1974
37 See Wallerstein (1974).
38 See Becker : ch. 7).
(1983
82

term, localised bourgeois interests and by accomodating up to a point some of those of
the proletariat. The military regime, in particular, did not stand 'above' domestic class
forces, and, while was not hostile to labour. On the other hand, the
pro-bourgeois,
state's less than complete autonomy from local societal forces made itmore autonomous
with respect to external forces. It was able to ignore the wage preferences of transnational
and it mounted a more valiant resistance to the IMF than is generally
mining capital,
admitted and than would have seemed possible upon Peru's international ac
reading
counts. This is the precise opposite of what dependency approaches predict.
Labour's advance within the system was facilitated by its 'economism'. The arrange
ment according to which the military ruled was, in effect, that the economic interests
of mobilised societal groups would be respected so long as they did not openly bid
for political control. That arrangement was eminently satisfactory from the perspective
of a labour movement whose members were alienated from formal politics they
(which
viewed as a mere competition for spoils) and were not motivated. It enabled
ideologically
the movement to free itself from subordination to parties and electoral and
strategies
to pursue uninhibitedly its economic aims. But this exclusive concern with economic
gains had its costs. The question of overall working class cohesion was largely ignored.
Opportunities in the camp community for building political self-esteem self
through
help and for checking bourgeois power at the centre were overlooked. No coalition
with other subordinate societal groups was forged. Given these omissions, mine labour
could not become a vanguard for socialism.
It is in this light that the supposed radicalism of Peruvian mine labour must be
evaluated. In spite of appearances and the unquestioned dedication of the movement's
leaders to Marxism-Leninism, this was no radical political movement in any sense. It did
nothing to develop a political programme or based on a root and branch

ideology critique
of the new political order that emerged after 1968. (There was no lack of criticism of the
old order, but that could hardly be an effectivepolitical foundation.) What is seen instead
is the political expression of a group which acquiesces in the system of class domination
but is alienated from much of the 'superstructure'; which therefore fears political control
from outside and wants to be free to pursue fairly narrow We
goals without constraint.
thus come to a paradox : the 'radical' current in the mine labour movement is actually
conservative, since it is even less interested than the party-affiliated that pre
leadership
ceded it in subordinating the economic privileges of the mine workers to political aims.
These circumstances point to the possibility that stable civilian rule under bourgeois
hegemony may yet be achieved in Peru. It has been stated that a hegemonic integration
of the working class into a stable order is possible if
capitalist
'the bourgeoisie is responsive to the challenge of the workers' movement and
responds to it (1) by relying for capital accumulation on higher productivity
rather than by low pay and (2) by acknowledging the role of the unions in
the mediation of collective conflicts. In return, ask for and obtain
employers
loyalty to the rules of the game both within the factory and in politics....'
(.)
Those conditions seem to have
been met by the But 'new bourgeoisie'. there is more:
'This sort of pact a specific class structure a class both
requires (.), working
strong and capable of stimulating change wage demands and other
through
types of pressure (.). In such systems there is a congruence between the eco
nomic and political power of the workers, in the sense that the latter's
political
strength grows out of and is coexistent with economic This is not
development.
so in countries where mobilisation is largely the work of revolu
(.....) political
tionary parties and other factors only related to the
indirectly economy.'39
It is so, however, in Peru.
39 See Graziano (1980).
83

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MODERN MINE LABOUR AND POLITICS IN PERU SINCE 1968

Author(s): David Becker

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Class analysis is a powerful

class-analytical To some extent, they have. Stimulated by the nationalist

geoisies of the world Or, it is held that processes of development involving

velopmental leadership role.3

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solely in terms of a "circulation of elites". Since it can neither comprehend

growth of working-class political cohesion and nor considers the

by political authoritarianism\ (Emphasis in original.)6

organisational place a took

6 See Becker (1982).

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(the mediana mineria).

THE HISTORICAL PROCESS OF CLASS TRANSFORMATION IN THE MINERIA

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Yet, the Puno of resistance

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groups during labour

11 Goodsell (1974:169-174) describes the all-pervasive controls that existed in Toque

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firm, the altered climate brought forth a new

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proletarianisation, Cuajone and the MINEROPERU facilities are a third the

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THE NATURE OF MINE WORKER'S MILITANCE

representative. The second questioned the entire workforce.

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If we look at working class formation and action in the developed countries, we

STRIKES IN PERU, 1967-1979

Number of strikes Number of strikers Manhours lost to strikes

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mainly to an increase in strike frequency in the rest of the nonagricultural economy.

INDICATORS OF STRIKE INTENSITY, 1967-79

No. of strikers Manhours lost Manhours lost

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STRIKE INTENSITY INDICATORS BY ENTERPRISE, 1969-1979

Cerro/ Marcona/ restof Cerro/ Marcona/ rest of

* Data are for all enterprises Southern

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'ECONOMISM' AMONG THE WORKING CLASS ?

'Economistic' class action is predicated on the that the principal in

requirement. What of the first ?

The Evolution of Real Wages and Benefits

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INDEX OF REAL WAGES IN PERUVIAN MINING AND OTHER INDUSTRY, 1967-79*

y Petroleo and published in Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1980 (1980).

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The Question of Control over theEnterprise

combining co-ownership with co-management, both to be gradually attained through

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nity's representatives were weakening or undercutting in the enter

negotiating positions at bargaining time.

THE POLITICAL POWER OF ORGANISED MINE LABOUR

Labour and National Power

sought. likewise avoided as any company offer

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1. Nationalism. The were nationalists by conviction and shared the percep

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company and made the companies more resistant than ever to

28 As an example : in 1970 a Cerro marcha de sacrificio, billed as a demonstration against 'im