Jiu Valley
The Jiu Valley is a region in southwestern Transylvania, Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains. The region was heavily industrialised and the main activity was coal mining, but due to low efficiency, most of the mines were closed down in the years following the collapse of Communism in Romania. For a long time the place was called Romania's biggest coalfield.
History
Before the 19th century
The region was populated since ancient times, being part of Dacia. During the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of the Jiu Valley lived in huts spread along the mountains, and often near the river, and the main activity was shepherding. Until the early 19th century the region remained sparsely populated due to its geographical isolation.19th century and early 20th century
The development of coal mining started in the Jiu Valley about 160 years ago, around the middle of the 19th century, when Hungarian, German, Czech and Polish workers were brought from all parts of the Habsburg Empire to work in the coal mines. Romanian miners from other regions, such as Baia Mare or the Apuseni Mountains, were also brought to work in the Jiu Valley. During the late 19th century, the region started to strongly develop itself, economically and culturally, through a flourishing industry based on mining. The Jiu Valley, being situated in Transylvania, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the 1918 Union of Transylvania with Romania. During World War I, the area was the site of heavy fighting between Romanian forces on one side and German and Austro-Hungarian forces on the other side. The first battle ended in an important, albeit temporary defensive victory for the Romanians, nevertheless the Central Powers succeeded to break through the Romanian defences here in November 1916. Mining continued to dominate the economy in the 20th century, but the region also experienced social unrest, notably the Lupeni Strike of 1929. The mines were privately owned until 1948, when all private companies were nationalized by the Communist government.The Jiu Valley during the Communist regime
As part of Romania's reparations to the Soviet Union for its wartime alliance with Germany, the Romanian coal mines were nationalized and converted into joint Soviet-Romanian companies. These Sovroms continued for about ten years. The Jiu Valley expanded rapidly in the second half of the 20th century as the country's communist rulers embarked on an intensive industrial growth program fueled by coal combustion. Steel production rose from 280,000 tons in 1938 to 13,790,000 tons in 1985. Steel production was fueled by coke, distilled carbon made from metallurgical coal. As coke was generated, it gave off coal tar as a by-product that was then used in manufacturing many other products. To meet the labor requirement for this demand, the communist government imported tens of thousands of miners from around the country, mainly from Moldavia. By 1979 the number of miners reached 179,000.During the 1970s and 1980s Ceaușescu determined that Romania should be completely debt-free and sought to repay its foreign debt ahead of the repayment schedule agreed to by the country's creditors. To accomplish this, he exported for sale any products or materials of value, while the little inferior food and products remained was sold on the domestic market. Opposition was ruthlessly crushed and expressions of discontent were stifled by the ubiquitous Securitate, the secret police. As a result, in order to survive, more and more people began to transact business through barter trade and other informal economic means. achieved his goal, but at a huge cost to nearly all sectors of the country. Since the anti-Ceaușescu revolution in 1989, restructuring of the coal sector, the country's economic contraction, and a shift toward natural gas all contributed to a significant decrease in both production and consumption of coal in Romania. Production declined by 57%, from 66.4 million short tons in 1989 to 28.6 Mmst in 1998. Consumption also fell more than 60%, from 77.7 Mmst in 1989 to 30.8 Mmst in 1998.
During this same period the Jiu Valley has been profoundly influenced by lack of re-investment, deteriorating infrastructure, mine closures and massive layoffs, environmental degradation, and political and cultural isolation from the rest of Romania.
Organized labor in Romania
Organized labor has played an important role in post-revolution Romania, affecting the actions of every government since 1989. Chronic work stoppages and economic disruptions by various labor organizations helped bring down successive governments and contributed to general economic and political instability. While trade unions have existed in Romania since the late nineteenth century, during the communist period from World War II until 1989 independent trade unions were not allowed to exist. Instead, there was a national pyramid of industry federations consisting of enterprise trade unions and headed by the General Union of Romanian Trade Unions. The few attempts during this period to found independent trade unions or organize worker protests were ruthlessly suppressed, with their leaders severely punished or executed. Following the chaos of December 1989, trade organizations sprang up virtually overnight. Unlike in Western Europe where trade-union pluralism typically reflects ideological groupings, in Romania labor movement fragmentation reflected distrust of higher authority, personal ambition and unwillingness of leaders to reduce or share power. As of 1997, labor analysts estimated that there were over 14,000 enterprise trade union organizations, 150 federations, and 18 confederations, representing approximately two-thirds of the workforce. Some consolidation occurred in the 1990s.Jiu Valley Coal Miners Union
Few, if any, Romanian trade unions, though, have had as much influence or won as much national notoriety as the Liga Sindicatelor Miniere din Valea Jiului. While there are two other coal mining regions in Romania, and other miners unions, the Jiu Valley Coal Miners Union has long been the most independent and militant.Political and social unrest in this region is nothing new. To this day miners commemorate the Lupeni Strike of 1929, the big strikes of February 1933, and the miners’ protest in 1977 during the Ceaușescu years. On the latter occasion, on 1 August 1977, 35,000 Jiu miners gathered in the main yard of the Lupeni mine to protest against a new decree that raised the age of retirement from 50 to 55 and reduced the miners’ pensions. Spokesmen for the miners claimed that the protest was the culmination of many years of deteriorating conditions and the intolerable political situation in the country. Ceaușescu dealt with the miners by agreeing to their demands and then, as soon as the movement subsided, ordered reprisals against the leaders. He also transferred four thousand of them out of the area and replaced them, many of the replacements working as informants for the Securitate, the dreaded secret police. The subsequent climate of fear kept the miners silent until the 1989 revolution.
The 1990s: the rise and decline of miners' unions
During the 1990s the Jiu Valley miners have played a visible role in Romanian politics. In fact, Romanians have a name – mineriada – for the periodic eruptions of violence when Jiu Valley miners went on strike and descended upon Bucharest. The first post-revolution action came in 1990. In May 1990, former communist official Ion Iliescu won the presidential election with a majority of over 80%. Some groups, dissatisfied with results, continued street demonstrations in Bucharest, after most of the participants in the electoral meetings before the election had renounced the sit in. Several weeks after the elections, when the authorities attempted to evict the remaining protesters occupying one of Bucharest's central square, violence erupted and, as the police and gendarmerie retreated under pressure, protesters attacked several state institutions, including the police headquarters, the national television station, and the Foreign Ministry.When the police failed to contain the crowds in University Square, President Iliescu issued a call to arms to Romania's population to prevent further attacks on the newly elected authorities. Among those who responded to the call from organizers were coal miners from the Jiu Valley, who accepted the government offered transport to go to Bucharest to confront the demonstrators. An estimated 10,000 miners were transported to the capital in special trains.
State television broadcast videos of workers attacking and fighting with protesters, including students, as well as the opposition party headquarters. The miners claim that the agitation and most of the brutality was the work of Iliescu's government agents who had infiltrated and disguised themselves as miners, and there were widespread rumors and suspicion that the Serviciul Român de Informații was involved or behind the events with the miners.
Later parliamentary inquiries showed that members of the government intelligence services were involved in the instigation and manipulation of both the protesters and the miners, and that the miners had been "joined by vigilantes who were later credibly identified as former officers of the Securitate." For two days, the miners violently confronted the protesters and other targets. Despite denials by the secret service, in February 1994 a Bucharest court "found two security officers, Colonel Ion. Nicolae and warrant officer Corneliu Dumitrescu, guilty of ransacking the house of Ion Rațiu, a leading figure in the National Peasant Christian Democratic Party, during the miners’ incursion, and stealing $100,000." Petre Roman's government fell in late September 1991, when the miners returned to Bucharest to demand higher salaries. A technocrat, Theodor Stolojan, was appointed to head an interim government until new elections could be held.
The 1990 mineriad was followed by several other actions during Iliescu's presidency. In September 1991, the miners, irritated that the government had not lived up to its economic promises, descended on Bucharest again. An estimated 10,000 miners came to the capital. Rioting ensued and lasted over four days. The actions during this time led to the resignation and replacement of the prime minister and his cabinet. August 1993 saw another miner strike and a resumption of general strikes by other trade unions. In November 1996, many miners, fed up with what they saw as a betrayal on the part of Iliescu, voted for his opponent, Emil Constantinescu, during the parliamentary and presidential elections.
The economic situation for state-favored working classes, such as the miners, who had been relatively insulated against the harsh privation suffered by the general populace, changed after 1989. During Ceausescu's regime the mines and other ineffective state-owned industries were artificially propped up and protected against market fluctuations. Miners were considered relatively well paid, although there was little of value to purchase with the money they earned. After the revolution in December 1989 the replacement government maintained Ceausescu's policy of subsidizing these money-losing industries with few changes to the industrial or management practices that had led to the problems in the first place. The government borrowed heavily without adhering to the conditions of economic reforms required by the World Bank, the IMF and other international lenders. With Ceausescu's forced privations lifted, and falling prices for Romanian exports, the country's international debt soared. This in turn led to fewer funds allocated to industry reinvestment and maintenance.
Relations between labor and the new Constantinescu government, while appearing initially quite promising, proved as difficult and problematic as before. Under pressure from international lenders, who refused to provide any more financial assistance unless inefficient and money-losing state owned operations were reduced and other reforms carried out, in February 1997 the new center right coalition embarked on a comprehensive macroeconomic stabilization and radical structural reform program. This program was also seen as a key requirement for attaining the government's goal of membership in NATO and the European Union.
The Constantinescu and Vasile government's urgent priority was to reduce budget and trade deficits by making major budget cuts, and eliminating non-profitable sectors, including the mines. Decreased mine yields and a low international price of and demand for Romanian coal all contributed toward the huge losses in the mining industry being incurred by the government. By some estimates, national demand for coal fell from 44 million tons in 1996 to 33.5 million in 1997, out of a potential annual capacity of 52 million tons.