Asturian miners' strike of 2012

Location of Asturias within Spain

The coal mining industry has played a part in the local economy of the provinces of Asturias and León since the Roman era.[3] The region also has a history of militancy: an uprising in 1934 led by miners took place but was crushed by General Franco;[1] and a miners' strike which began in Asturias in 1962 involved nearly 500,000 workers and was the first time under Franco that a workers' movement had won significant concessions from the state.[4] Miners also engaged in protests against privatization and industrial restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s.[5] In 2010 the miners were successful in another dispute, which resulted in legislation supporting the coal industry.[6][7] The Spanish coal industry had been in decline since the 1990s as subsidies were phased out, however, resulting in a significant reduction in the number employed by the industry.[8] Between 1990 and 2015 coal extraction in Spain dropped by 76.5 percent and the number of workers employed in the industry declined by 85.7 percent.[9]

In order to comply with European Union regulations requiring Spain to reduce its fiscal deficit,[10] and aiming to end state aid for the electric power industry by 2018,[8] in 2012 the Spanish government announced plans to reduce subsidies for 40 mines from €300 million to €110 million.[1][10] The subsidies were designed to bolster Spain's energy sector as well as to support programs that would transfer miners to jobs in green infrastructure development.[11] The Unión General de Trabajadores, Spain's largest trade union said such a reduction would lead "to the shutdown of coal mining and the abandonment of the mining districts to their fate."[12] Miners wanted the subsidies to continue until 2018, and argued that Spain's limited energy resources meant it must keep the mines open in order to protect itself against future shocks in the energy market.[13]

Miners began their strike in late May 2012.[14] The strike included attacks on police and offices of the ruling People's Party.[10] Miners attacked police with rockets, stones, nuts and bolts, and blocked up to 60 roads a day[13] including 16 main roads and motorways and two railway lines.[1] Miners also occupied a mineshaft[1] and erected barricades made from burning tires.[5] The Civil Guard[5] and riot police used tear gas,[10] baton charges[10] and rubber bullets.[15] In June 2012, a rail passenger was injured when the train on which he was traveling collided with tree trunks placed on the tracks.[10][12]

On 15 June, clashes were reported by the Ministry of the Interior to have resulted in seven injuries, two of them serious, comprising four police officers and three journalists. The Interior Ministry said the injuries took place when police tried to remove roadblocks of burning tires and came under attack from missiles fired by miners.[16] On 5 July, a child aged five and a woman were injured by stray missiles during violence between miners using home-made rocket launchers and police using rubber bullets, while miners using rockets caused burns to two policemen on 6 July.[17]

Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller have argued that the miners' tactics were rooted in their knowledge of the area's geography: "The battle lines they drew in this conflict were deeply rooted in knowledge of the roads, valleys, rivers and mountains where the miners took positions to outwit and out-gun, when they could, the better armed paramilitary"[18]

The strike overlapped with a transport workers' strike in Asturias and León.[5] A general strike was held on 18 June in Asturias, León, Galicia and Aragon.[13]

Maxwell and Miller have argued that "The miners’ strike was not merely a local flair up [sic] of militant action", but rather "expressed a trans-territorial, multi-generational struggle against European government policies that threaten workers' rights, autonomy and well being."[18] They argue that the strike exemplified a problem identified by the cultural theorist Raymond Williams, characterized by the need to respond to environmental despoliation and the social effects of such a response.[32] They conclude that "As the Spanish miners understood, the greening of industrial political economies is a strife-ridden, transformational moment that calls on worker participation to move livelihoods and cultural norms toward a society of sustainability."[33]

Amaranta Herrero and Louis Lemkow have identified the framing of the strike as an anti-austerity struggle, the representation of the cutting of subsidies as an outcome of globalization, and the omission of discussion of technological changes in mining, the history of subsidies and the environmental problems caused by coal mining from the debate as factors in the consolidation of widespread support for the miners.[34] They also identify a social imaginary around the idealized figure of the miner as a contributing factor.[35] They argue that the debate "was reduced to the social sphere, only a matter of worker solidarity and of opposition to liberalization measures", with the effect that "The necessity of urgently reducing CO₂ emissions, and therefore of starting to put an end to perverse subsidies worldwide, was omitted from public debate."[4]

• 2008–2012 Spanish financial crisis
• 2011–2012 Spanish protests
• List of protests in the 21st century

• Featherstone, David (2015). "Thinking the crisis politically: lineages of resistance to neo-liberalism and the politics of the present conjuncture". Space and Polity. 19 (1): 12–30. doi:10.1080/13562576.2014.992253. S2CID 144706472.
• Herrero, Amaranta; Lemkow, Louis (2015). "Environmentally Blind Discourses on Coal Extraction and the Idealization of the Miner in Spain". Capitalism Nature Socialism. 26 (4): 215–235. doi:10.1080/10455752.2015.1054849. S2CID 147501176.
• Maxwell, Richard; Miller, Toby (2013). "Cultural Materialism, Media and the Environment" (PDF). Key Words. 11: 86–102.

• Rosa, Isaac (13 July 2012). "'Yo soy minero': the miners light the way of the struggle". ROAR Magazine. Translated by Cunning Hired Knaves. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 26 October 2018.