Mercedes Ordás arrived at a new day of the La Cabin festival to present to the public one of the pieces in competition from her section Amalgam. Mercedes is one of the many people involved in a documentary work that, under the very descriptive title of Mine stinks, narrates the difficulties faced by the world of mining in Castilla y León. We are located in the small town of Ciñera, in the province of León, an area whose prosperity depended entirely on the mine. But the future of this industry seems doomed. The company decided to close the excavations, causing the consequent situation of general strike.. From there, The miners only had one way out: try to draw attention to your situation. The camera takes in the elevator that descends to the bottom of the earth. From that moment, everything is darkness. The mine is not exactly a friendly space for visitors. But it's your world. De fondo escuchamos las voces de las mujeres de los mineros, protagonists of this story that, like Mercedes, they tell what has been, what remains and what could be. GERARDO LEON
The first thing I wanted you to tell us is the background of the situation from which this film is based..
Well well, I will tell you that the mining company is La Hullera Vasco-Leonesa and it is private., private equity. It has always depended to some extent on government subsidies for coal. In it 2012 They begin to propose ERE's and carry them out because the government begins to cut subsidies. Actually, The miners no longer go out on the road to defend their own rights as workers, but to defend the company. The union tells you that, if the company closes, you don't eat. So, you have to defend the company. ERE's are chained, one after another and in the end you reach bankruptcy. Lo más inmediato es que se cierra la mina interior. But the Ciñera Matallana Santa Lucía mine is a very large basin that covers three different valleys. The mine has gas, firedamp, It has water and can have collapses at any time. And there is fire because the coal, at a given time, if you have a lot of oxygenation, if it has a lot of oxygen, rusts, takes. That coal no longer goes out, no flame, but it's very hot. So, four companions, four miners lock themselves inside the well to ask both the central government and the community of Castilla y León to give us time and money to put the mine in optimal safety conditions, so that tomorrow there is no collapse, an explosion of firedamp or a flood of water that breaks and muddies everything in its path. Because the problem with water is that, due to the slope of the land, I would end up in the town of La Robla and destroy it. They have been locked up for nineteen days and this is where the anthropologist Conchi Unanue, in collaboration with MUSAC (Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilla y León) He gives them a camera so they can shoot images of the mine. Because we are seeing that this is ending, The mine is finished and with it the basins. The project starts like this.
The film is made by a collective named after its title. I wanted to ask you, How do you undertake an audiovisual project in a group??
Bueno, Conchi contacts MUSAC who offers a collaboration, especially video cameras and sound recorders. And it coincides that Conchi is from Ciñera. In Ciñera we are all a family, sometimes bad avenue, others don't, but we are a family, you already know (laughter) She gives the recorders to certain women and, simply, you said: oye, let's talk a little about mine; or let's do this, what do you think?, would you like to remember, comment and chat about it? And so, foolishly foolishly, We have hours and hours of talk and memories and emotions, of feelings.
The miners' wives are the narrating voice of this story. Why did you decide to be the ones who were the vehicle of history??
Because you realize that men have always had their share of participation in these issues. There are several documentaries, movies and books about male miners, but no one has cared about the woman behind, of the mother, from sister, of the wives, of the daughters... No one has cared to know that the woman has always been behind that man. You are the one who runs the family, picks you up when you have an accident, is the one who consoles, who is there, is the livelihood. Basins are formed because miners come to work in the mine, but after fifteen days or a month, they bring their family. They are totally unknown people who, suddenly, they have to live together, work together, and women unite with each other because we need each other. We need to make a family, we need a neighborhood, a solidarity, a companionship, a sharing between us. I think that's the nexus of all this., that the woman is the union, It is the force behind the miner.
One of the things you mention is that confrontation that arises between the harsh living conditions that the mine presents and, on the other hand, the need to maintain it as the only way of subsistence for an economically depressed area.
You have to realize that the mining basins, in all, They are a monoculture, and it is coal. The coal company, somehow, doesn't let there be anything else. It's all about coal, there is no more industry. There may be services, restaurants, grocery stores or supermarkets, but there is no other industry than this. Right now the mine is gone and everything is gone. The mine has fed us, has given us studies because the company, the Basque-Leonese Coal Mill, It was created after the post-war period and had a lot of power, and what it did was weave it around it. He builds the town for his miners, te pone cine, it gives you schools, it gives you everything. Even, You went to the bank and said that you had a payroll from the Basque-Leonesa Coal Company and you had no problem getting them to give you a loan., that's as far as it went. Everything depended on the mine, everything was “La Vasco” and, suddenly, when the mine runs out, you have nothing. In the documentary they talk about a golden cage and it is like that. You have everything in the area, You don't need to go outside to look for anything., But when you go outside you realize that you were in a golden cage.
The problem is that there has not been a job alternative to this industry. What do you think has gone wrong in that sense?? Has there been a lack of foresight?
Already in the nineties they told us that coal was running out. Not that the coal was running out, like coal, In other words, the mineral is there and the expectations that the company had were that even in the 2050 could be extracting coal. What was ending were the subsidies, the aids, pre-retirements began. So, What has happened is that the miner has not recognized that his life as a miner was really ending because the government, the company or the electricity companies were not going to continue. On one side, The community or the government has not given you infrastructure or helped you establish industry and, on the other, The miner has not had that vision of the future that it was over and that you had to do something more. Although there have been INER plans, a lot of money, millions of euros that have gone to fixing roads or creating spaces. Right now there are plans to Dynamize the Mining Regions, but we are in the same. In the end, You collect those plans and they are talking about how they are going to put the roof on I don't know what church or that they are going to give you training courses for an industry that doesn't exist in the area.. It's the whiting that bites its tail.
About subsidies to companies, Recently there has been another multinational with which something similar seems to have happened...
here too, in León. Vestas, which is a company whose capital is from Denmark. They are wind turbines. It has been, I don't know if it was ten or fifteen years based on subsidies from the Junta de Castilla y León, but when the Board has decided that there are no more subsidies, that the company is viable by itself, has decided that the benefits are not enough and is going to another place where they can either give them subsidies or pay their workers less, and leaves five hundred direct people on the street and all the jobs around. How happened with the mine. They are the three thousand or so miners that there were, but also transporters and the entire network of small businesses or jobs around that depend on it., who have also gone to the street. We're not talking about five hundred people., as in Vestas, but a thousand or a thousand and a bit. There comes a time when everyone depends on the mine or the salary of that miner and, when there is no more, there is no one for anyone.
The issue of coal also raises a complicated issue that is addressed in the documentary. And it is highly questioned as a form of energy., especially from an ecological point of view. I wanted to ask you about this difficulty. How do you fight for something that, apart from economic circumstances, It is not well regarded by society as a form of energy? And I don't say it cheerfully, like an attack, but as something that is being raised in many sectors. There are those who simply say “we have to close this”, and although I don't think that should be the whole answer, at the same time you have to deal with it.
Yeah, we would start because in Saint Lucia, which is where the wells are right now, It is an esplanade with some buildings around it and there is the well as seen in the movie. The interior mine pierced the mountain from the inside, makes tunnels inside. But next door we have the open pit mine and it is really very impressive because, I tell you the opposite, is digging the mountain from top to bottom. And well, I think environmentalists should go see it., see the movie (because you can no longer enter the mine), the images, even if they don't hear our comments, and then stop by to see an open pit mine. Let's see what is more ecological. Besides, What is proposed is that national coal no longer has a pull right now, no one is interested anymore, more interested in imported coal. Of course, you are in Valencia. I am in León, but I am very close to Asturias. In it [port of] The Musel, in Asturias, in Gijón, imported coal accumulates. Right now they are having enormous problems because with all these storms that come and cyclogenesis, the wind lifts the coal and deposits coal dust everywhere.. It is a big environmental problem. We are no longer going to go into the issue of imported coal, where is it taken from, who takes it out and under what conditions. You have to keep in mind that it comes by boat to the port of El Musel, and there it is loaded onto trucks that pass along our highway, in front of our people. When we are standing, we are seeing trucks loaded with coal passing by. That's not ecological either.. However, Vasco had a system that in the same basin took the coal through a tunnel to the laundry and took it directly to the thermal power plant.. So you already got transportation out of the way.. If you then add that the thermals depend on the electrical ones, not from the mining company, but from the electric company that works on it, They should have put filters in the chimneys a long time ago to avoid sulfur and so on., then you realize that a lot of environmentalism, but in reality the one who is causing problems is the electric company and no one tells them anything. It's more, We have the problem that if there are no filters, the thermal ones close and the electric ones refuse to install those filters despite the benefits they have.. It's a bit relative. I think environmentalism is very good, that we have to opt for clean energy, but before closing we need to have and in León we don't have. We are talking about Vestas, We are talking about the fact that the Board gave subsidies to install wind turbines and to install solar panel fields that have not been carried out., that those industries have gone under. So we have no other alternative..
The film is based on the images recorded by the miners. This establishes a relationship with the viewer who remains, So, like some kind of intruder that gets into that space. Why did you decide to focus the entire narrative on that single image??
Well because, for many years, We have always heard that the miner is privileged. They always tell you that if the salaries, but salaries, those from twenty years ago, with the first early retirements. Now they are not so salaries, it has been cut a lot. But not only in salaries, also in security, in accessories, throughout. People don't realize what we're talking about in the movie., that the mine is very black, very dark, that you only see with the focus, and the headlamp that the miners wear only shines forward, does not light backwards, that it rains on you, that the water falls on you, sometimes drop by drop and other times a little stronger, that you have to work in those conditions, that the hammer is with compressed air and hits your joints. Forty years old, A miner who has been in the mine for eight or ten years is going to ask for a job somewhere else and they won't give it to you because you have joint problems., back, of silicosis. So the work is hard. And as they have always called us privileged, (We are privileged on the one hand and then terrorists on the other –laughs–) well well, We liked that people get into the mine and have a vision of it. A very small vision, but it impacts people. And there is no one working, that is to say, you are not seeing the suspended dust that you are eating. The idea is that people get inside the mine and have a small idea of what it really is like., not what they have sold us.
The film leaves out the faces of those interviewed. I wanted to ask you if it is a decision to maintain anonymity or if there is another reason. What is the intention?
I think it's because it gives you more freedom.. Although people who know you can relate your voice to your face, In some way, not seeing your face gives you more freedom to speak and to give your opinion and to be able to say “that's how I think.”. If they see your face it seems like they are going to know you and see what that person thinks... We have hours and hours of conversations. We would have for another couple of movies (laughter) Yo creo que simplemente es eso, the freedom to be able to give an opinion without the restriction of whether this person is so-and-so or so-and-so.
The film raises the constant presence of death around the mine. There is a constant tension that the worker and those around you suffer.. I wanted you to tell us about it.
It really is like that. You go down the well and you don't know if you're going to come up. I think everyone has internalized it., everyone knows it. And then, like you live longer, you feel more precisely because of that. You talk to retirees, with early retirees and they tell you that they miss being there. But I don't think they miss the work itself., but they miss the camaraderie, the camaraderie they had with each other and that togetherness because you really know that anything can happen at any time.. Water can break a wall and take you away, a bad stumble, one of the hoses that carry the compressed air to the hammer can break and hit you, and more than one has been left without teeth. So accidents are the order of the day., minor accidents, but there can also be deaths. And they have it so internalized that they don't even talk about it.. But I think they have it very much in mind because they are always, I'm going to say funny, is not the exact word, but they are always trying to have a joie de vivre.
There is an issue that you address in the film and it is the loss of solidarity in the world of work.. what has happened? What has gone wrong to cause this solidarity to be lost??
Well, I think that being a town where all the miners know each other, where all the miners live together, the union is very strong. If someone comes to harm my neighbor, I am going to defend them.. But there came a time when the same company, having free houses, did not provide housing for young couples, made them go to find a life in another town, to the Roda, and Pobla, even to León. And it gave them facilities because it provided the fosca, which is the bus that took the miners to work.. You could go live in León and at six in the morning take the bus to come to work in Ciñera. Te disgregan, somehow they separate you from your family, of your neighbors, of your core so that you do not have so much attachment. I think it really starts there., that the company saw that they couldn't handle us (laughter) and it separated us, it was unraveling us. Even so, the feeling of permanence and union is still there. We have the example in 2012, but I think it started there, with early retirements, something orchestrated. Before you start having major problems with the miners, let's separate them. That's why in the film we say that it seems to us that it was a long-term plan so that this union would no longer be so strong..
There is a phrase from the movie that says that “what is not talked about seems like it has not happened.”. What does it mean to you?
Well, above all, it is because of the issue of accidents and deaths.. When miners have an accident they turn to the family, but it can be, at most, a month because they have to continue going down the mine. Even though they have internalized it, that you can lose your life that same day, they have to keep going down. So, That's that, If you don't talk about it it hasn't happened. It's still there, but it's like the ostrich that hides its head. It seems to us that not talking about accidents or deaths is a psychological defense to be able to continue going down without being afraid.. There have been people who have been in an accident, what, although it hasn't been your turn, you had to go after your companions, that you have seen that the colleague who was one meter away from you has died and you have escaped by a hair's breadth and psychologically they are in a bad way and they have had to ask for leave. They are few, but there are. Everyone else, who have not requested the discharge, they still have it there.
To finish, to close the cycle, What solutions would there be for the area??
Well, the truth is that right now it could no longer be opened because, apart from the fact that it is dismantled, the mine that is not being worked continuously has dangers of collapses or firedamp, of water or fire. It is very dangerous. Solutions? Alternatives? It is difficult because we are a high mountain area. Now it seems that everything revolves around rural houses, of rural tourism, of hiking. It could be done, but until when. You do not have your own land because practically everything belongs to the company. The company dedicated itself to buying land and making its own buildings, schools, factory, It even had a power plant. But the company leaves and everything is unmaintained. You could take advantage of those buildings for industry, to set up a cheese factory or a factory, but you would have to invest a lot of money. Then the communications are not very good either.. We have a national one that goes to the port of Pajares, which a month ago was covered by snow and Asturias was an independent republic because it was cut off from Spain.. And then, Because it is high in the mountains we have very poor network coverage. So, Nor can you set up an industry that needs computers and a network with speed. All that is to be solved. First land communications, and then the online ones, and from there you could do something. It would be a question, first, of putting in infrastructure and then trying to build something.
According to what you tell me, No one uses those company-owned facilities., but, Does it still function as a company name?
Yeah, What happens is that it is in bankruptcy. There is a bankruptcy administration that has to pay everything the company owes. It cannot generate debt and liquidates all the company's assets. The dossier of the company's assets is almost four fingers because it has things even in Barcelona, here on the coast it also has land and flats. One of the things that was liquidated was the town of Ciñera because it built the houses and notice that they were not even registered as housing. That was the power that the company had in those times. I would tell you that Arias Navarro was the brother-in-law of the owner of La Vasco. There is a lot of land, of buildings, the foundation, the historical archive that depends on the bankruptcy administration that is in liquidation. and there they are.
