Spain: Toward a Change

(4 of 10)
desolate, mountainous region, where the rivers run black over slate and shale. Its miners are a tough, hardy folk, for the equipment they use is outmoded, the coal they dig is of low quality and difficult to extract; a man's average output is only six-tenths of a ton in an eight-hour day, perhaps one-twentieth of a U.S. coal miner's production.

The miners' grievance this time was a proposed new wage contract that failed to give unskilled workers the raise they demanded from a basic minimum of 60 pesetas ($1) a day to 150 pesetas ($2.50) a day. Suddenly one morning, seven picadors (cutters) at a mine in Mieres refused to begin the day's work. In a flash the whole mine joined the down-tools movement. Within a matter of days all 60,000 miners in the region quit.

There was no violence; on the contrary, the drab little towns in the steep Asturian valleys took on a holiday air as idle workers strolled the streets with their families, or gathered at cafes to drink cider or the red wine of Leon and eat chorizos, the popular peppered sausages. Many listened to Radio Espafia Independiente. the Communist transmitter that spews its anti-Franco propaganda from Prague. Czechoslovakia (featuring La Pasionaria. legendary Red amazon of the Civil War). Since Franco's own press and radio were suppressing the whole matter. Prague was the only Spanish-language source of news about the spreading strikes in other parts of Spain: thousands of shipbuilders and metal workers in Bilbao, many more in Barcelona. In all. 100,000 Spaniards in other areas were off the job in sympathy with the 60,000 striking Asturians.

The Communist Excuse. For the regime, it was the gravest political threat since the Civil War. but the government's first reaction was mild. For weeks, no action at all was taken. Then a state of emergency was declared in the three provinces most affected; 4.000 fresh troops and militiamen were sent in to reinforce the local authorities. But the cops were careful to avoid excessive trouble. Avoiding a showdown. Franco sent a trusted Cabinet aide, burly Sindicatos Boss Jose Solis Ruiz, to the region to calm the striking workers. It worked, but only after Solis talked himself hoarse for two weeks in speeches and conferences with worker councils—and only after promising to grant many of the wage demands. For Franco Spain, this was extraordinary; Spanish workers, breaking the regime's sternest decree, had not only conducted a two-month strike—they had won it.

As usual, the government blamed "foreign influence," "liberals" and "Communists" for the whole affair. Solis called attention to "the enormous pressure of Communist propaganda." In fact, the Communists, who number perhaps 5,000 in all of Spain, are well organized, but have little appeal among the workers.

A member of Don Juan's privy council.

Florentino Perez Embid. Catholic lay leader and professor of geography, put it this way: "Five years ago these strikes would have been impossible. They would have been crushed. Now the government has to negotiate with workers' leaders who are not members of the official syndicates." Protesting Priests. Perhaps the most important development revealed by the strikes is the growing support of the workers by the Roman Catholic Church, often a reactionary force in Spain and a