A sense of tragedy queen these days in the coal mine of St. Nicholas. The operation, located in Mieres, a municipality of almost 40,000 inhabitants, is one of the more than 20 that three decades ago populated part of the central area of Asturias, and gave employment to more than 25,000 miners. Today only a few hundred work in the three that remain in operation, and that, in accordance with a decision of the European Union of 2010, which prevents the continuity of the mining is not competitive beyond December 31, will have to close.
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Is the culmination of a process that started decades ago and which promised new jobs in other sectors as compensation. But the result has been the opposite: Asturias has lost about 75,000 jobs in the last decade, and the percentage of employed is the second lowest in the country, 44%. This gradual decline has left a trail defeatist in young people, especially in those with extensive training, which in recent years have left the region due to the lack of job prospects. Among those that have been prevalent the belief that their conditions of life already never will be the generations that came before them.
In the premises of St. Nicholas, between the coming and going of companions that come out of the cage, Héctor Argüelles, 40 years ago, calls for “alternative employment” for those who lose their jobs. The miner David Garcia, 42, thinks that the end of this age, “delve into the depopulation” that suffers the area, which only in the last 20 years has lost 20% of inhabitants.
A strong social rejection accompanied during the eighties and nineties to the early closures. Mining had the backing of a region that saw its holdings of coal is not only a source of employment, but something almost as idiosyncratic as the green of its landscape. Demonstrations and strikes occurred. In 1991, several dozen workers and union leaders chose a date unexpectedly, on the eve of christmas Eve, to begin a running of the bulls in one of the farms.
they left 10 days later with the promise of a rain of millions that would guarantee the social order. And fulfilled. The guarantee of good early retirement for the sector (which, before the dangerousness of the office removed to its workers at an age around 40 years, sometimes with pensions of around € 2,500 per month), large investments in the area or subsidies for the creation of enterprises contributed to disable the running of the bulls and mobilizations. But the inefficient management of these funds, linked sometimes to cases of corruption, some of which amounted to full the cusp of unionism miner, he would lay a strong discouragement, that survives to this day, among the population.
“There was a proposal for restructuring of the economy from the creation of employment in other sectors,” says Fermín Rodríguez, an expert in spatial analysis from the University of Oviedo. “The decline of the coal, has coincided with the rise of new sectors”, abounds Esteban Fernandez, an economist at the university. At present, the steel industry, one of the historical areas, remains the economic pulse of the region, while addressing the rising prices of the electrical energy, which Asturias comes in almost 90% of the burning of fossil fuels. Aluminum, which has suffered recently by the announcement of the closure of the multinational company Alcoa’s plant in Avilés, the sector naval gijón, or the food are of long tradition in the region, the latter on the rise in recent years.
When you evaluate an economy, the economist, and exrector of the University of Oviedo, Juan Vázquez considers that there is a basic criterion to define its success: “how Is being able to retain its young people and attract workers from other places?”. The figures suggest that this is not happening. At least since the nineties the number of people that has been born in the region and the leaves is higher than Jokerbet the returns to it. The immigrant population has also fallen in recent years to stand at 4%, one of the lowest percentages in the country.
Vázquez considers “necessary” to reverse these trends. The economist advises, “to recover the human capital on the outside” to address three phenomena that will converge at a next time: the aging of the population, a “second conversion related to the production and consumption of energy”, and the reform of a funding model regional “Asturias you may not come out very well stop”. One of the places in which you received your training part of that human capital that speaks to the economist it is a small campus in the mining town of Mieres. Built in 2001 with money from funds intended to stimulate the economy of the region, 15 years after account with only a 15% of the plates could take. It is for many, the example of the poor management of these investments. There are studying approximately 900 university students in a building erected on the premises of a former coal mine where a christmas Eve a few workers decided to start a running of the bulls with the thought that they could change the course of your time.
“The job is a lost war as the coal”
In Langreo, another of the municipalities of mining tradition, several of the workers wrap up their day. The parents of some of them have been miners. Your age can surprise you when you consider that lack of a stable job: any inching towards 40. They are the children of the frustrated economic recovery of these regions.
“In my family all worked in the mine,” recalls David Bardio, 39 years old, which shows disbelief at the prospect of employment in the region. Bardio believes that in addition to opting for a job “should be well-paid”, not something you see in your environment.
As he, Eduardo Seixas, 38 years, is also the son of a miner. Has had various jobs in the construction industry and as a truck driver, although always temporary. “I stayed in the street every few months,” he laments.
His companion, Luis Ángel Fernández, of 34 years, believes that the employment in Asturias “is a lost battle, almost as much as the coal”.
