Stress Among Romanian Workers

7/30/2019 Stress Among Romanian Workers

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ANALYSIS OF WORK AND WORKERSIN ROMANIA TODAY

This essay compares how active andunemployed Romanian Jiu Valley miners andFgra region chemical workers, interpretand respond to post-socialist decline, whichtakes the form of increasing unemployment,falling standards of living, and especiallystress in work and family, and problems ofhealth and general welfare2. The essay is partof a larger project concerned with the relationof labor and health perceptions among these

regional populations. Using survey, ethno-graphic, observational, and interview data,we asked if the actual conditions of labor ineach zone in this time of crisis affects workersenses of control over their lives and if this, inturn, influences perceptions about health, thebody, and physicality in general.

As is painfully apparent, the decline in JiuValley and Fgra workers lives, if notamong workers through Romania today, hasstressed out both groups. Life is hard and

people are bitter. However, to understand andperhaps address such stress, we must firstconsider the social and cultural particularitiesof each region and how regional populationsrespond to the forces and pressures of thecountrys economic crisis. In fact, our re-search suggests that variations in cultureresulting from the specific way by whichworkers are incorporated into regional pro-duction systems result in highly variableresponses to crisis both within and betweenregions. Below we describe the differentialintegration of labor and how this is perceived

and acted on by diverse groups, focusing ondomestic arrangements, political responses,and attitudes and actions related to unem-ployment.

Workers lives are not often thought rele-vant for detailed social scientific examinationin contemporary East Europe, let aloneRomania. To speak of workers today, afterforty years of socialist class and cult oflabor (cultul muncii) rhetoric, one runs riskof being accused of Communist sympathies

A NEW CULT OF LABOR:

STRESS AND CRISIS AMONG ROMANIAN WORKERS1

DAVID A KIDECKEL WITH BIANCA ELENA BOTEA,RALUCANAHORNIAC AND VASILE OFLU

Sociologie Romneasc, 2000, 1, 142-161. 142

1 This research is supported by the U.S. National Council for Eurasian and East European Research withfunds provided under authority of a Title VIII grant from the U.S. Department of State, the InternationalResearch and Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanitiesand Title VIII, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Connecticut StateUniversity. Neither these organizations nor the U.S. government are responsible for views expressed here.The authors would like to thank Vintila Mihailescu, Filippo Zerilli and the other attendees at theUniversity of Perugias symposium on Ethnographic Research in Romania, for their thoughtful com-ments on the first draft of this essay.2 Research was carried out in summer and fall 1999 and summer 2000, and included work place obser-vations, questionnaire administration and interviews in the cities of Fgra, Oraul Victoria, and through-out the Jiu Valley, concentrating on the Lonea, Aninoasa, and Lupeni mines.


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A NEW CULT OF LABOR: STRESS ANS CRISIS AMONG ROMANIA 143

or, at the very least of irrelevance (cf.Gardawski and Gciarz et al 1999). However,in our estimation, the social and economicdifficuties besetting contemporary Romaniaabsolutely justifies putting social science andeven ethnographic practices, like thick des-cription, cultural relativism, and in situ analy-sis, to practical use. And there are few socialissues with which social science must grappleas compelling as the condition of the laboringclasses. If anything, the generalized malaiseof Romanias workers today defines a newcult of labor shaped by anger, fear, andabove all, stress.

To probe the diverse perceptions andresponses to such stress, however, we feel anengaged social science of labor needs threequalities. First, it must be critical and focus onthe nature, causes, and responses to existingsocial problems. Second, it must be compara-tive and seek to understand social variationand how and why different groups constitutetheir social realities in different ways. Third, itmust be contextual. In this time of crisis, we

can no longer afford the luxury of restrictingfieldwork to bounded communities or discretecustoms. Instead, communities and customsmust be considered as operating withinregional, national, and international politicaleconomic contexts and social forces. With thisapproach in mind we offer the following dis-cussion on the diverse nature of Romanianworker communities and their lives in crisis.

CONTRASTING REGIONAL LABORSYSTEMS

On the surface, the Jiu Valley and Fgraregions share many similarities that charac-terize their circumstances throughout socia-lism and post-socialism. In the socialist yearsboth regions prospered from a concentratedmono-industrial production base, hard-coal

mining in the Jiu Valley and chemical manu-facture and processing in the Fgra zone.Their successes drew labor from other Roma-nian regions. However, in post-socialism, be-cause of that concentration of industry, bothregions have been targeted for extensive eco-nomic restructuring, the results of which nowhaving produced devastating unemploymentand active labor movements.

Today, as is well known, the Jiu Valleymining industry (minerit) is reeling from tworounds of mass layoffs spurred by worker

contract buy-outs (disponibilizare) thatoffered lump-sum severance packages tominers of from twelve to twenty months ofpay in addition to regular unemploymentbenefits. The buy-outs enabled closure of twoof thirteen mines, threaten an unspecifiedadditional number today, and have decreasedminerit employees from roughly 42,000 in1997 to 18,216 today3. The largest part of theunemployed miners now sits idle in the JiuValley towns, their benefits running out inDecember 1999. As discussed below, many

idled miners who had immigrated to the re-gion, used part of their severance pay toreturn to their areas of origin, chiefly Mol-davia. However, they returned to the Jiu whentheir prospects did not pan out. Similarly, inthe three factories of the Fgra region4 thenumber of employees declined precipitouslyfrom a total of 17,239 in 1989 to 5,636 today.While many of these laid-off workers haveimmigrated to Italy, both legally and illegally,most remain in the region seeking othersources of livelihood.

High unemployment and steep rises in the

cost of living have galvanized labors angerin both regions. Jiu Valley miners are, ofcourse, infamous for the periodic mineriadeand actual and threatened marches on Bucha-rest. Despite the renown this brings, theseactions have been eclipsed by miner grie-

3 There were 53,446 employed in the mineritin 1989.4 These include the Nitramonia Chemical Company and the UPRUC Chemical Outfits company fromFgra and the Viromet Chemical Company from Oraul Victoria.


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SOCIOLOGIE ROMNEASC144

vances against local mine administrations.Fgra factory unions and workers have alsoparticipated in labor actions at both nationaland local levels. In part to stem such actionsand address economic needs the Romaniangovernment has named the Jiu Valley a dis-favored zone. Fgraappeal for this status,though merited according to the criteria setforth in the law5 has not, as yet beenapproved.

Still, despite these broad similarities, thedifferential integration of labor into local life

has shaped specific local cultural practices,and contributes to diverse socio-economicresponses to disfavor and post-socialist de-cline. In the Jiu Valley, mining is the near solelivelihood and thoroughly dominates regionalmentalities. The distinctiveness of the mine inregional life thus contributes to the produc-tion of a number of symbolic oppositions sep-arating the mine and miners from other socialgroups. Specifically mining culture encour-aged collectivity among miners and intensi-fied polarized relations between miners andsuperiors, between active and unemployedminers, in gender relations, and in the viewsof politics and the state between miners andothers. Contradictorily, though polarizationspawned by mining creates an angry laborforce, such polarization also arrests minereconomic responses. Rather than diversestrategies of adaptation to economic crisis,the miners largely demand rebuilding themining industry or replacing mining withother occupations equally as lucrative oridentity producing.

In contrast, in Fgra, sources of laborand income have always been diffused. Whilethe chemical plants were the chief regionalemployer, Fgra workers, to a much greaterextent, have access to rural village occupa-tions and resources. They also have a range ofother alternatives which they perceive asmore readily available to them, includingemigration. This then contributes positivelyto the elevation of labor as an end in itself, tosomewhat calmer labor relations, a greaterdegree of equal economic participation of

men and women and hence more stable, ifstill troubled, domestic relationships. At thesame time, however, the scramble for accessto the diverse resource base of the region ge-nerates an endemic competition betweenworkers and gives rise to greater interperso-nal jealousy. How these situations developed,are understood, and responded to by workers the discourses of disfavor and despair arethe focuses to which we now turn.

LABOR AND SOCIAL RELATIONS INTHE MINERIT

Miners experience decline in polarizedways. Enmeshed in an intense collectivity byvirtue of the particular qualities of work inthe mines, they nonetheless see this waning inresponse to post-socialist change. Thoughthey are enraged in response to the failingmining industry they are still incapable ofjoint, purposeful action. Their pretensions tosolidarity are shaped by the nature of mining,the special position the miners occupied inthe socialist state, and the current treatment of

5 On the basis of the Romanian governments Ordonana de Urgena, 24/1998, a disfavored zone meetsat least one of the following conditions: 1) mono-industrial production profile which employed at least50% of the labor force; 2) mining zone where workers were released by collective termination of theirwork contract; 3) collective termination of the work contract affects at least 25% of the local work force;4) an unemployment rate at least 25% higher than the national rate; 5) a poor communications and trans-portation infrastructure. According to many, the Ordonance on Disfavored Zones was passed specifical-ly to address the political volatility of the Jiu Valley. Whether or not the case, the Jiu Valley was first toreceive this designation. Regarding Fgra, as late as mid-November 1999, they were still submittingdocuments to the government center at Alba Iulia responsible for review. Fgra officials were con-vinced they could not be denied such status. However, they were still chagrined at the time the processtook and the possibility that political considerations might slow down their application or limit the pro-grams for which they qualify.


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miners in Romanian political discourse.However, miner unity today is torn by in-creasing distinctions between segments of themining population that have grown in res-ponse to recent miner political actions and thebuy-outs of the last years.

Jiu Valley miner solidarity first growsfrom the cultural mystique bonding thosewho work under the earths surface. The starkboundary between the underground and theearths surface, expectations of sudden death,and the brutal conditions of mine labor all

encourage a common identity. This was fur-ther supported during socialism by the mate-rial supports the group received and the lite-rary and journalistic manipulation of minerimages to promote the socialist cult of labor(Brgu I. 1984, Pospai M. 1978). Today theblanket critique of miners in national mediahas replaced socialist attentions. Such criti-cism (see, for example, Perjovschi D. 1999)encourages miners to believe they are scape-goats for their industrys decline and thecountrys social and economic malaise. Ho-

wever, mineriade to the contrary, this com-mon outlook and anger neither translate intoeffective action nor even shared understand-ing of needed steps to overcome decline.Despite popular opinion and scholarshipspeaking of diverse types of miners as a lar-gely homogenous group (cf. Lamarso Group1998, Larionescu M. et al 1999), miners are adifferentiated lot whose unity is eroded invarious ways, but especially by social andcultural distinctions in the mine division oflabor.

Until the massive lay-offs of 1997 divided

those with and without work, the major dis-tinction between miners separated those whowork beneath the earth at the coalface (minerila front), with the mineri la ntreinere, i.e.those employed in surface and auxiliary mineoccupations like signalman, mechanic, explo-sives expert (artificier), or transporter. In

fact, legendary miner solidarity is really onlyfound at the coalface, where work is mostdangerous. There, depending on qualifica-tions, one is a miner, assistant miner, wagontender, or unqualified worker. For safety andproductions sake, and at potential loss of payand life, at the work site (abataj) all teammembers respond to the miners demands.Below, then, when we speak of miners, werefer to mineri la front, unless otherwise indi-cated.

The separation of underground (subteran)

and surface and mineri la frontand mineri lantreinere is also evident in miner behavioroutside the mine. Thus, though miners andauxiliaries take part in the same brigade, afterthe shift work team solidarity is embellishedby bouts of drinking and a particular etiquetteof behavior at the bar. In this coalface teamsremain together, but generally separated fromother groups. Drinking and smoking alsosymbolize the passage from work to non-work, from underground to surface. Thus,when most miners leave the mine they first

light up a cigarette. When they had money, itwas the rare end of a shift not marked with around of drinking where all were expected tocontribute in turn.

In contrast to coalface miners, for allintents and purposes, auxiliaries live andwork in separate worlds. They have greatermobility during their workday and hence aslightly greater sense of control over theirlabor. They have their own dressing areas(vestiar). They often drink among themselvesafter their shifts. They have different levels ofeducation. There are even rural-urban differ-

ences as auxiliaries are often men (and somewomen) from villages upland from Jiu Valleycities6. These villagers call themselves andare called by others Momrlani, a termderived from Hungarian for those leftbehind, as their presence in the Valley dates,by some accounts, even to Dacian settle-

6 Many people assume the Jiu Valley to be rural though it is one of the most urbanized Romanian zones.


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ments7. Momrlani work mainly at minesclose to rural areas8. As peasant-workers theyhave access to rural products, but need timefor that production. Consequently, they areknown to often give mine administrators ruralproduce to gain employment at surface worksites or to leave the mine for the household intimes of intense agricultural activity.

Though miners and auxiliaries aver mutu-al respect, considerable social distance hasrecently developed between the two groups.The crisis in the cost of living has especially

prompted mutual recrimination as, since thedisponibilization, miners contrast their work-ing conditions with the easier ones for auxi-liaries. Meanwhile auxiliaries decry theirlower salaries compared to miners, eventhough they say they face equally dangerouswork conditions. Most important, the poten-tial unity of these groups breaks down overthe differential participation of miners andauxiliaries in the various mineriade. The for-mer wax poetic about Miron Cozma andreadily aver their participation in formermineriade. However, auxiliaries claim to

have either not participated at all or to havebeen forced to participate. To a person theystate that such labor actions were a great mis-take.

The spatial and symbolic separation of themine from earths surface also separates themine and the household, the miner and hiswife, and thus limits shared economic strate-gizing. June Nash saw the division of laborbetween Bolivian tin miners and their wivesas symbiotic, integrative, and effective inhelping galvanize and organize oppositionallabor action (Nash J.1979). However in the

Jiu, though miners and their wives are mutu-ally interdependent, their relationship is sepa-rate, often distant, and often lacking effectivecommunication. They have different inter-ests, friends, conversations, avocations, andhousehold responsibilities. Miners wives, for

example, are the main opposition to their hus-bands drinking. Some show up at the minesor the bar on paydays to take their husbandspay packet and give them a small amount fordrink. So separate are their realms that storiesabound of poor communication between mi-ners and their wives resulting in domesticproblems. A recent variation tells of how bothemployed spouses separately decided toaccept the buy-out at their workplace andneglected to tell their partner, resulting in thefamily losing access to all income sources at

the same time.Shared economic strategizing is also

restricted as minerswives have generally notworked, even though about 20% of theemployees in the entire Jiu Valley minerit,including coal preparation facilities, arewomen. Besides the lack of other employ-ment except mining in the Jiu Valley, workfor women was not necessary since minersalaries were, until recently, sufficient bythemselves to support a family. Also, minerfamilies often had large numbers of children,requiring womens attention. But even when

miners wives worked they were also criti-cized. One wife of a Lupeni miner whoworked at the Lupeni mine offices said:

At work I always had problems. Theywould tell me that your husband works at themine, so (I) should stay home. I dont knowwhat worth this discussion had. It mainly cre-ated divergences between me and my col-leagues that I was greedier because Iworked at the mine. I certainly dont agreewith this, because I was hired here evenbefore my husband was.

CULTURAL OPPOSITION IN ANDABOUT THE JIU VALLEY MINERIT

Aside from the growing separation bet-ween miners and auxiliaries and men and

women in the Jiu Valley, the conceptual dis-

7 According to Vasile oflu, the appellation Momrlani, is not exclusively a term restricted to the JiuValley but is also used by and about other mainly rural populations in the larger region, such as in araHaegului to the north.8 These mainly include Lonea, Livezeni, Valea de Braz and Uricani.


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tinctiveness of the mine and miners also con-

tributes to differential explanations for the

minerits decline among Jiu Valley populations.

These contradictory discourses distinguish the

bulk of todays mining population who arrived

in the Valley in three post-1977 volleys of

immigration from non-miners, others who

arrived before the advent of the socialist peri-

od, and those settling in the Valley right after

World War II through the 1960s. In dividing

the regions population in this way such dis-

cursive differences keep tensions high in the

Valley, deprive miners of political and eco-nomic allies, and reinforce their view that they

are being unfairly scapegoated.

The non-mining and pre-1977 Jiu Valleypopulation largely agree with the receivedwisdom that minings decline dates to thesocialist period. They especially blame thepoor quality of the people who arrived at thattime to work in the mines. According to thisview, which we could term MoldavianOrientalism (cf. Said E. 1975), the minesbegan to decline as socialist practices encour-aged shoddy labor. However, this was exacer-bated after 1977 by immigration of poorlyeducated, minimally motivated, and sociallytroubled populations from other Romanianregions, mainly Moldavia. They were sent tothe Jiu to dilute miner political unrest thaterupted in a strike in early August 1977. Thisstrike closed the mines and forced NicolaeCeauescu to travel to Petroani to addressminer concerns (Velica I. and Schreter C.1993: 188-89). Many immigrants to theValley, unable to adapt to the rigors of mi-ning, left soon after arriving causing the num-

ber of mine workers to fluctuate wildly. Thisresulted in Ceauescus policy to use the mi-litary in the mines to stabilize the size of theworkforce to maintain production. The insta-bility of mining district populations resultedin a decline in the quality of production, evenas the state bought political peace by raisingminer salaries, expanding their benefits, anddecreasing the time and requirements neces-sary for them to qualify for higher paying,more responsible positions in the mines.

According to the non-miner discourse, theremnants of this in-migrating, socially andculturally backward population form the bulkof those who work today in thesubteran andwho continue to receive large salaries forinefficient work in an outmoded and ecologi-cally unsound production system. Worriedabout their declining privileges, they are saidto be easily manipulated by leaders like for-mer and current president Ion Iliescu or thecharismatic, demagogic Cozma, now in pri-son for 18 years for his part in the miners

threat to the Romanian government in 1991.Most recently in the so-called mineriade ofearly 1999, outsiders say that miners werewhipped into a frenzy as the state failed tomeet their unrealistic economic demands tokeep the mines open and miner salaries high.

The non-miner discourse also contrasts the

post-1977 period with Jiu Valley and minerit

culture developed by entrepreneurs and work-

ers from Austro-Hungarian ethnic groups from

the late eighteenth century (Baron M. 1998).

According to this notion, the regions past was

one of relative economic and cultural well-

being. The private mines were generous to

workers and mining became the occupation of

choice and family tradition. Community life,

too, was elevated by the minerit. Local bands

played in town squares. Theatre groups enter-

tained miners and their families. Ethnic peace

reigned between the diverse Valley groups

Poles, Czechs, Magyars, Szeklers, Germans,

Jews, and Romanians. Though the industry

was not without its tensions and conflicts,

such as the ambiguous Lupeni miners strike of

1929 (Oprea I. 1970, ic N.1977, Velica I.

1999) by and large these are de-emphasized associalist aberrations.

Contrasting these views, the historical hori-

zons of most mineri la front, date to the 1980s

and the good life of late socialism. Moldavian

immigrants talk of how their labor expanded

the minerit and was critical for Romanias

becoming an industrialized nation. Before

1989, they say, their jobs were assured, miner

salaries were deservedly among the highest in

the country, and their expenditures supported


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the entire Valley population. Even the shortagesof Ceauescus last years do not seem all that

daunting to miners in light of present-day diffi-culties. As one former miner said:

If we have anything in our house today itis from the time of Ceauescu. But now allthat we accumulated before we must sell inorder to survive. In the time of Ceauescu ourcountry even had enough to give food toothers. But now us Romanians are starvingbecause of this improper reform.

Another miner, a work team head from

Lupeni, focused on the richness of cultureduring Ceauescus days. Then, he says,

We had all kinds of wonderful things. Wewent on picnics together. We had good foodat the mines. We had sports teams that theminers supported. We would get cheaptickets to come to the games where there wasa holiday atmosphere. The big teams wouldeven come and play. But now no one reallygoes to the games much anymore. Theyhavent the money or the spirit.

Hearing over and over how they are toblame for minings difficulties, most miners

today see themselves as scapegoats for failedgovernment reforms in the mining sector.They particularly feel that Romanias recentgovernments consciously discriminate againstthe Jiu Valley and point to, among otherthings, the cost of water, the corruption of

political and economic processes, and variousbroken promises, such as President Constan-tinescus to maintain mining jobs and expandother employment, made during his visit of

November 1998. To hear most miners tell it,mining would do fine if Romanias govern-ments would let it. Though they decry theconditions in which they work, in some minesreminiscent of the nineteenth century, minersclaim that policies that close factories andreduce the countrys need for energy sit at theheart of their problems. They also claim that

the government is in thrall to internationalagencies like the World Bank and IMF, whichforces it to restrict Romanian production andthus limit the countrys need for coal.

However, the general condemnation ofthe government for the minerits problemsfails to translate into generalized action. Theminers lack support in their own communitieswhere they are pariahs whom non-minersblame for the poor view of the Jiu Valley bythe rest of the country. Since the last mineri-ada, unity between miners and auxiliaries is

increasingly questionable. And domestic con-ditions only promote frustration but little inthe way of solutions. Thus, the over-whel-ming sentiment which miners feel is betrayal(Friedman J.1999) and their over-whelmingresponse recrimination against self and col-leagues. In particular, the meaning of themining life has inexorably changed thoughminers seek to hold on to it even though theysense its certain decline.

MINER RESPONSES TO CRISIS

In the tensioned post-disponibilizationenvironment miner self-conceptions andsocial relations are deteriorating and miner

culture is arrested by the perpetual disquiet,uncertainty, and sense of abandonment wide-

spread through the Valley. The miners showclear recognition that their communities and

relations are in disarray. They readily contrast

life today to their late socialist political andeconomic salad days when they were treated

as the crme of Romanias industrial workersand brought all Romania to a standstill. A

common miner complaint thus concerns how,in the past, their pay was in first or second

place in the whole nation, but now we arelucky if we are in tenth place. They also com-

ment on how today people look at them as ani-

mals9 but before, as one former mine union

9 The animalistic quality of miners lives was especially portrayed in the documentary Prea Trziu (TooLate). Though many actual miners were filmed and the movie caused a great sensation in the Jiu Valley,it is largely seen as a scurrilous denigration of the miners and their culture. Among other things it depic-ted murders in the mine that never happened and showed the miners in the most dehumanized way,including a scene of mass nudity in their shower after a shift.


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leader said:

We miners had respect. Not only did we

have good salaries but also people in Ro-

mania looked up to us for challenging the

regime (i.e., in 1977). All of Romania even

waited for us to take the first action to bring

down the regime. But when the train of the

revolution left the station we miners werent

on it, and we havent had the respect of the

country since then.

Miners dont disagree that the mineriadehad deleterious affects on how they are per-ceived within society. However, they suggestthat these negative perceptions are due topurposeful media distortion of what went onduring the mineriade rather than actual reali-ty. This view especially concerns the lastmass march of the miners, which ended innegotiation at the Cozie Monastery. Inregards the march, the miners say that nearlyall the Romanian working people supportedtheir attempts to preserve their jobs, but thatthe government and media tried to sow fear

among the people by a skewed selection ofimages and interviews. The miners also sug-gest that they were gassed and shot at by go-vernment troops so the government couldshow the World Bank and IMF they wereserious about reform.

The miners not only feel bereft (or cheat-ed) of support in society at large. Even theirvaunted coalface solidarity has begun toerode under pressures of worker buy-outs,economic crisis, and political backlash. Butthough they recognize that the world theyknew is no longer and that change is of

utmost importance, their typical responseshows them uncertain of directions to takeand ultimately unconvinced of the mineritsend. They are suspended, as it were, betweenthe excesses of the past and the unknown,though almost certainly bleaker, future.

Political Responses: As indicated above,the storied activism of Jiu Valley miners of thelast years is fast on the wane. Strafed andgassed by government troops in January 1999as they marched toward Bucharest, their num-bers reduced by two-thirds in the recent buy-outs, and hearing the critique from both so-ciety in general and their auxiliary colleaguesin the mines about past political action, theminers are not soon likely to mount effectiveresponse to their decline. This is made morecertain as relations between the miners andtheir union, the Liga Sindecatelor MiniereValea Jiului, are also tensioned. Thoughmany miners still speak of Cozma as a demi-god, they are much less attracted to their cu-rrent leaders who are now mainly seen aslargely disinterested in workers needs or ashopelessly corrupt and compromised.

Even miner local labor activism seems in

eclipse. Despite the great number of strikes to

replace local mine administrations over the

last years, and the continuing high rate of

turn-over in mine directors, it is interesting to

note that miners today neither blame specificmine administrations or even the National

Anthracite Coal Company (CNH, formerly

RAH)10 for their problems. It is the national

government and national politicians that are

thought in collusion and behind their distress.

National institutions such as CONEL, the

electric power monopoly, or the Water

Directory (Regia Apelor) are also culpable.

More to the point, miner behavior in local

strikes is also changed. Previously, the miner

ethos required that when one mine struck, no

matter the cause, so too would all other mines.

If miners at one mine didnt know the precisereasons for their colleagues labor action, to

show their solidarity they still walked-out first

and asked questions later. Today, however,

such behavior is rarely evident. Active miners

worry about their pay and especially job

retention and there are few reasons that will

10 The change in names is more than cosmetic. The newly-named Companie symbolizes a less natio-nalized profile than its precursor, the Regia Autonoma a Huilei .


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prompt a strike in such conditions.With no specific actions either likely or

available to them to change their immediatesituation, miners look to the past for answersand support. They have long supported IonIliescu for president and also, early on,favored Corneliu Vadim Tudor in theNovember 2000 election. According to them,life was better when Iliescu was president andIliescu regularly promises the miners stateintervention to keep the mines open.Furthermore only Iliescu, of all major party

representatives, showed up at Miners Day atLupeni Mine in August 1999 for the 70thanniversary of the Lupeni strike. He spokelater at the monument to the 1929 strikers, asthe crowd carried placards with slogans likeCriminal government, 1929-99, Workersneed workplaces, Miner Unity, and Free-dom for Cozma. In his speech he empha-sized the heroic quality of the miners for theirpast political actions and largely condemnedthe Constantinescu and CD governmentsfailure to provide jobs in the mines. When Iasked some older women why other politi-cians werent there, they said that they hadbetter not come or we would beat them upfor sure!

Though President Iliescu is in a difficultposition, both needing to support industrialrestructuring while maintaining his commit-ments to Romanias workers, his promises,nonetheless, play on miner anxieties andsmother other possible economic responses.In the main, miners wait for new mining jobs.What economic initiative there is only fur-thers developing social distinctions. Mine

auxiliaries, with generally greater educationand social pretensions, more often think ofother solutions. They are the ones who morefrequently seek emigration to Hungary formining or other kinds of jobs. Momrlanimeanwhile are less threatened by mine clo-sure due to their rural incomes. Consequently,they neither supported the diverse mineriadenor do they see the vast conspiracy that otherminers do in the restructuring of the minerit.Other miners, however, are generally angry at

the states failure to provide jobs, denigratenon-mining jobs, and are confused aboutsteps available to secure other employment.They also have other occasionally fantasyresponses to their predicament, like enthusi-asm for investment in the AmwayCorporations consumer products pyramidsales scheme, frenzy over Euro-bingo, oreven wistfulness about failed Caritas (seeVerdery K.1996).

Socio-Cultural Responses to the Crisis in

the Minerit: Translated to a personal anddomestic level the current crisis has produced

a range of problematic behavior in miner com-munities. The incidence of divorce and intra-familial conflict, including violence and

abuse, has especially increased. The crisis hasalso spawned a minor crime wave. Statistics

from the local Judiciary office show that casesof family abandonment almost doubled to 63in 1998-99, compared to 67 cases in the previ-

ous four years. Additionally, there were 27cases of corporal crimes, such as feloniousassault, in 1998-99, compared to 32 cases total

in the previous five years. Incidents of prosti-tution and procuring also show up for the first

time in post-disponibilization statistics(Judectorie Petroani 1999).

Miner households are thus under severestress. Some families have begun to dissolveunder economic pressures while others wiltunder health problems. In particular the mo-dern scissors produced by worker buy-outsand pressures from the rising cost of livingespecially threatens miner families. There hasalso been a slight increase in Jiu Valley

divorce rates, from 463 cases in 1993 to 473in 1998 and a decrease in the number of mar-riages from 407 in 1997 to 230 by October1999. Even more people would divorce, peo-ple say, but for the prohibitive costs

Such changes erode the very sources ofgender identity and family role expectationscharacterizing miner communities for a quar-ter century. Miners were men, through andthrough, with this identity supported andembellished both at work and in the house-


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hold.Work shaped the essential male identity.

This was where a man expressed his true self.As a mans powers waned over time minersoften engaged in dangerous and difficultfeats, often requiring hard physical labor, toshow their younger colleagues their ardor andskill. Drinking too articulated with essentialmale group identities. When a man drinks, heis expected to keep up with others and to buyrounds in turn. Drinking with ones ortaciafter a shift was also a symbol of having left

the mine, and hence an affirmation of lifeitself. As a mine safety instructor clearly said,

Miners do not drink alone. A miner says,

Only cattle drink water alone and have noth-

ing to say to another.Miners drink in groups

and beer from the house does not have any-

where near the value as beer from the bar.

Drinking beer at home is not good for miners.

Furthermore, if you dont drink, yourortaci will say that women, who show up onpaydays to limit the money their husbandstake with them to the bar, control you

Unlike their husbands, miners wiveswere consumers. They valorized themselvesby maintaining family standards of consump-tion, encouraging the childrens schooling,and representing the family in surface, publicspheres, instead of via their external labor.Miners brought in income and their wivesbudgeted and spent it. But these role expecta-tions are rocked by the changing economiccontext of the Jiu Valley. And as neither hus-band nor wife is able to live up to these for-

mer standards and expectations, the imagesof themselves and each other are challengedand their relationships stressed.

Writing about stress Robert Sapolsky(1997: passim) shows how this generallyaffects a persons entire emotional, physical,and social balance. Stress acts on the hor-mones, suppresses biological immunities,facilitates disease vectors, and otherwisewreaks havoc on human social and physicalorganisms. As Sapolsky says (ibid: 205):

The keys to stress management involvenot only gaining some sense of control or pre-dictability in difficult situations, but also hav-ing outlets for frustration, social support, andaffiliation.

But as is terribly apparent, those outletsfor miners in the first place ones labor, butalso Cozma and the union, the ortaci at thebar, or even in local and national politics have been thoroughly discredited, leaving

miners with little possibility but to turn theirstress and anger inward on themselves and ontheir families. Thus, as brief illustration, ratesof emotional illnesses in miner communitieshave increased, though these are coupledwith sharp declines in hospital self-admis-sions due to peoples fears of taking medicalleave lest one lose their job.

Worker Buy-Outs in the Jiu Valley:Unemployment and the Ends of Affinity: Thechief factor behind fraying miner social rela-tions was the state sponsored program of

worker buy-outs. As discussed, Jiu Valleylabor identities and social relations are basedon the qualities of mens work in the minesand the distinction of miners and others.However, the voluntary lay-off of so manypeople through the buy-out program set inmotion a whole chain of processes whichcalled into question these prevailing relationsand identities. Most important, the buy-outscreated a new and more significant differencein the Jiu Valley population as it dividedactive miners and their families from ex-mi-ners, the unemployed, and theirs.

Everything about the buy-out program isfraught with tension and uncertainty. The waythat it was carried out first of all deepened sus-picion between miners and the government,and between miners and mine administrators.It conceptually, socially, and economicallydivided those with and without work and alsocreated mutual distrust between them, someeven former work team colleagues. This pro-gram also had vast effects in the nature andorganization of production in the mines with


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their own precise effects on minerit socialrelations (though this subject is beyond theimmediate scope of this paper).

The first murky area concerns why thosewho left work actually accepted the buy-outin the first place, with questions aboutwhether their actions were forced or volitio-nal. Except forMomrlani, who left to workon their households full time and a few mennearing their retirement, most leaving themines said they were either forced out ortricked into registering to participate. They

speak of the severance money as bait(momeal) and say they were lied to andeither promised other work or a chance toreturn to the mines after a few months ofunemployment. One still-active miner,addressing both the coercive and uncertainaspects of the buy-out said:

The idea circulated that anyone with morethan three charges of unmotivated work, orthose who drank, would be kicked outIheard a rumor about a list with the names ofunmotivated workers scheduled to be let gofrom work and people were constantlychecking you out. Later this list changed. Idont know why, because there were alsogood guys (i.e. hard workers) on it.

In contrast to this perspective, most activeminers, mine administrators, or non-minerssuggest that those accepting the buy-out weresimply motivated by greed or the desire toreturn to their region of origin. They point tothe excessive spending of miners after theyreceived their severance packets or also sug-gest that many, in fact, did leave for Moldaviaor elsewhere. A very few, it is suggested, saw

no future in the minerit or had better eco-nomic prospects for themselves outside min-ing. However, the truth is probably a multipleone, with specific reasons for one acceptingthe buy-out arrayed along a continuum. Someless capable workers were no doubt threat-ened with loss of job. Others lusted for quickriches. And Momrlani returned full-time totheir rural estates. The chief engineer of oneof the mines verified this more nuanced viewof disponibilization when he challenged the

idea of trickery but admitted:Everyone had access to the same informa-

tion and left of their own accord. Still, therewas a bit of selection. We took aside goodworkers and asked them to reconsider, if weknew they were thinking of disponibilizing.But we didnt do anything to discourage badworkers from leaving.

More than the uncertainties surroundingthe buy-outs cause, the unemployment ofthousands of individuals in two years time,all of whom who received sizable severancepay, undermined what remained of minerstraditional solidarity and sense of profession-al group membership. As one former Loneaminer said:

In the moment in which they starteddisponibilization I signed up on the list fortransfers from the Transport section to anactual brigadeand in that moment I left,and didnt wait for them to tell me. But youknow what it means to move to another loca-tionits like youve lost a part of your life.

Another former miner said:

As one who took the buy-out, I am no

longer one of the fellows (ortac). Your fellows

were like your wife. We would share everything

and we would always reciprocate. Now youre

alone; its like you dont have a family.

The loss of identity provided by work alsoinduced a sense of shame (ruine). This wasmagnified as many of the newly unemployedminers derive largely from rural environ-ments where labor is accorded special signif-

icance. When they returned to their natalcommunities they were stigmatized not onlybecause they lost their jobs, but also weredeprived of their identity as proper personsand of symbolic and cultural capital (Bour-dieu 1977:89) in their social relations. Onesaid of a good friend:

After he left the mine, he went back to

Moldova, but there they sicced the dogs on

him. Then his father told him You should


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have stayed at the mine until the director put

a lock on the door of the place.

The wife of an unemployed miner said:

(My husband) hasnt gone back to his vil-

lage since he took the buy-out. Youd think he

wasnt even (his parents) child any longer.

We go back to my parentsplace often, but my

parents dont know he has left work.

The actual economic motivations, bene-

fits, and losses of taking the buy-out alsoshow how regional conditions shape respons-es to the crisis. Non-miners generally accusethose who left work of wildly inappropriateeconomic behavior. It is said that they rapid-ly spent their severance packets on luxuryfoods, clothing, and household appliancesand did little else practical with the money.They also say that miners drank their seve-rance pay away. However, while there werecertainly excesses of spending, most bought-out families had no other sources of incomeand so used a large portion of severance payfor basic expenses. Furthermore, the familieswe interviewed typically had significanthealth problems and expenses that comman-ded a large portion of this income.

Finally there were few other possibilitiesfor using ones severance pay. The bureau-cratic and fiscal obstacles to start a businesswere as large then as now, and miner socialrelations, tight in the subteran, were shot-through with suspicion in light of day.Consequently, the few businesses begun wentquickly bankrupt or fell apart due to mistrust

and squabbling between business partners.Furthermore, those who sought to leave theValley couldnt make money selling theirapartments since the market suffered fromover supply and negligible demand.

Given these economic conditions bothactive and bought-out miners see few alterna-tives to the minerit. Village part-time labor islimited as Momrlani largely satisfy theirown needs. Some miners who left their workperform occasional labor for private busi-

nesses, but generally reject the low salariesand uncertain conditions in this work. Mostnow survive by economizing; collectingmushrooms and fruit from the forests, work-ing in food stores for pay in kind, bringingfood from the villages, house painting andother odd jobs, or more rarely emigration.Though people in the Jiu Valley speak of emi-gration, they often do so in unrealistic ways,such as the discourse of the Lupeni hungerstrikers below, the Lonea fire fighter (salva-tor miner) or the Aninoasa assistant miner

who only thought emigration a potential strat-egy if they won the lottery.

However, bought-out miners generallydismiss such strategies. They wait for occu-pations with salaries nearly as large as in theminerit. One example of this inertia comesfrom the Lupeni hunger strikers of autumn1999. This group of 162 (originally 267),many disponibilized from the mine, wagedtheir visible campaign at the monument to the1929 strikes in the center of town. Theythreatened to immolate themselves, appealedto international organizations about the tram-pling of their human rights, and visited andhad visits from high-level delegations. Theychiefly demanded the right to work in goodjobs, by which they meant those paying overone million lei per month. They claimed theywould emigrate anywhere, including Bulga-ria, Albania, and Russia, so long as theyreceived the right to such jobs. To be sure,they were occasionally promised jobs thatdidnt materialize, sometimes owning to astrikers Roma identity. However, they alsofrequently refused jobs of to a miners

salary.All told, then, the Jiu Valley at theMillennium is less tense than deflated. Withbuy-out benefits having ended in December1999, there was general concern about possi-ble political actions as winter turned to springin 2000. However, even that did not developas the miners see themselves as a spent poli-tical force. There is intense anger amongsome, but with Cozma in prison, and the min-ers torn by the buy-outs, there will be no


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organized, large-scale protest forthcoming.This is, in fact, a fortuitous development,since some investment has begun to trickleinto the region. Whether significant new eco-nomic opportunities will develop in responseto the Valleys Disfavored status is un-known. To be sure, a concerted, even multi-lateral (to borrow a phrase from the Ceau-escu years) effort in jobs and job retraining,health care, infrastructure, is absolutely criti-cal. To achieve this will require labor peaceand a proactive work force. The first, unfor-tunately, has been achieved by considerablesuffering. It is the second half of the equationthat is more problematic.

LABOR RELATIONS IN THE FGRAREGION

Compared to the Jiu Valley minerit,Fgra chemical workers have widely diffe-rent responses to the current crisis, due main-ly to the dispersion of labor throughout theregional production system. However, thoughFgraeni have greater access to a widervariety of resources than Jiu Valley miners,this also shapes challenges and problematicsocial relations by requiring individuals andhouseholds to scramble and compete foraccess to these resources in the current crisis.Compared to the collective anger, torpor, andanticipation of the unemployed mine worker,the tenor of Fgra society is that of constantstress, strategizing, and individuation.

The Fgra chemical industry began inthe inter-war period with the founding of theNitramonia Chemical works in 1922 (Herseni

et al 1972). It expanded intensively afterWorld War II when Nitramonia and the incip-ient Victoria Chemical Works, now renamedViromet, were nationalized and renamedCombinatul Chimic Fgra and Combinatul

Chimic Victoriei. The UPRUC factory wasalso built in the mid-1950s to manufacturefittings for use in the chemical industry. Thethree factories grew rapidly through the1980s but since 1989 have declined steadilyin numbers of workers. Victoria employed4258 in 1982, fell to 4210 in 1989, and in1998, after two rounds of disponibilization,only 2398 employees remained. Similarly,Nitramonia had its greatest number of em-ployees, 8283, in 1989 but by 1999 this num-ber had fallen to 211311. The UPRUC in its

first year, 1958, employed 318, achieved itsgreatest size in 1978 when it employed 4991,fell to 4746 in 1989 but by 1999 only 1070employees were left.

These numbers tell only part of the storyof economic decline. As of autumn 1999 theViromet and Nitramonia plants continue towork three shifts to maintain various produc-tion processes, but UPRUC now works a sin-gle shift. Even that is too much for its dwin-dling work force, which are often sent homewhen the plant has insufficient orders. Simi-

larly, Nitramonia and Viromet frequently fur-lough their workers. However, as some oftheir production is defense related and in thenational interest, furloughed workers are onlytechnically unemployed (omer tehnic),and receive 75% of their salaries to stay homebut available for immediate recall.

Unlike the Jiu Valley, a large number ofFgraeni have access to non-industrialresources from the regions villages. In fact,both Fgra and Oraul Victoria and theirsurrounding hinterlands have long been tiedtogether in a dense network of social and

economic exchange. This is facilitated as theregion is a compact one and its transportationinfrastructure fairly well developed. Thus,Fgra families more readily adopt worker-peasant or peasant-worker strategies compa-

11 These numbers actually appear slightly worse than they are. Both the Fgra and Victoria combineswere separated into two enterprises and the number of workers on their payrolls decreased accordingly.Nitramonia is now paired with Arsenalul Armatei (formerly Rompiro) and Viromet with the VictoriaChemical Works. Both of these are special sections devoted to the production of military explosives.Arsenalul currently has about 800 employees while figures for VCW were not available.


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red to the miners singular preoccupationwith the minerit. True, there are considerablenumbers of individuals with few rural ties.More often, however, rural and urban work-ers maintain some kind of relationship and, insome instances, workers reside in the regionsvillages for all or part of the year. Villagerelations are a two-sided coin, however. Theyallow regional households somewhat moreaccess to foodstuffs and provide a source forpart-time income, but also require attention tothese relations and considerable extra effort

to access village production. Whereas theminers local network stops at the bar afterthe shift or is maintained (less effectively) bywomen, in Fgra such relations are thuseveryones business.

Another key difference between Fgraand Jiu Valley production is the greater role of

women in the former and what this implies for

gender relations in general. Fgra region

factories traditionally have made considerable

use of womens labor. In fact, in the past, hus-bands and wives were often employed in the

same factory, if not section, though this prac-tice has declined with recent unemploy-

ment12. The incorporation of women into the

regions factories changed female status from

one of dependence to that where they are per-ceived as active agents of the familys well

being. Furthermore, as women were integrat-

ed into the factory system, their presence

made the factory less of a symbolic boundary

and also de-emphasized the unity of work

teams even as it facilitated more effectivemale-female relations. Thus relations between

men and women in Fgra factories as well

as in society generally were put more on aneven keel. As one woman worker said:

We have pretty good relations at work and

talk easily with both our men and women col-

leagues. We have men at our shift and we are

all packers. We fill up sacks and they take

them and put them in the trucks. We talk

amongst ourselves about everything, what

are we cooking, what work we are doing, how

we are feeling.

Fgra women are also expected to con-tribute to family economic life in the midst ofunemployment and the cost-of-living crisis.Unlike miners wives, whose stay-at-homelife is normal, Fgra women especially feelthe pressure to bring in household income

and are thus under considerable pressure tofind gainful activity. However, because of thedecline informal employment, they tend,then, to gravitate to the informal, illegal eco-nomy of the labor black market (la negru)where they are frequently caught in exploita-tive labor relations but have no recourse butto try to maintain their meager salaries. Asone Fgra woman said:

Even if I make 400,000 lei a month thatstill helps us to do a little extra for the family.It pays for the telephone or the school field

trip for one of the kids. It helps make life a lit-tle better, even though my work schedulemeans that I have to be away from home allthe time and even when the children comehome from school.

Another contradictory resource for Fg-raeni is their more generalized participationin labor-related emigration. The Fgra zonehas a long history and tradition of emigration.At the end of the nineteenth and beginning ofthe twentieth centuries Fgra youth, lack-ing other economic possibilities, streamedout of the region to Bucharest, other Roma-

nian cities, but especially to the UnitedStates, where they formed the core Romanianpopulation in cities in Americas northeastand Midwest (Kideckel D. 1993). Today, theFgraeni destination of choice is Italy,where they often enter illegally guided by

12 In 1989 at Viromet of 4,210 employees, 1,858 (44%) were women. In 1998 of 2,398, 916 (38%) werewomen. Corresponding data for Nitramonia were in 1989 8,283 total workers, with 3,184 (38%) womenand for 1998, 2,168 total workers with 880 (41%) women. For UPRUC in 1999, of 1,070 workers 778(73%) were men and 292 were women.


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cluze. True to regional form, both men andwomen work as guest workers, the former inconstruction and the latter as domestics.Fgraeni believe they are so visible in theRoman economy, a prevailing joke in theregion tells how Italians often ask peoplefrom Fgra where that country is, i.e.implying it is an independent state. Still, emi-gration is not without its costs. As in the past,it drives up prices for land and housing. Toemigrate, either legally or illegally also costsa lot and intensifies family strategizing or

economizing to enable one of their own toleave13. Next to alcoholism, labor emigrationis mentioned as the most frequent causes ofdivorce. Furthermore, emigration increasesinvidiousness as those with access to emi-grant remittances clearly live better thanthose without.

Thus, compared to the stark distinctionsof Jiu Valley economics, the Fgra zone ismuch more ambiguous in its economic life.There are greater possibilities but greaterdemands, greater quality of life but greaterjealousy. Like the miners, Fgra workers

increasingly look back favorably to much oflife under Ceauescu. Unlike the miners whodecry their loss of status in todays societycompared to the Ceauescu years, Fgraworkers see job security as the most favor-able aspect of the socialist system.

FGRA RESPONSES

Political Responses: Like the miners,Fgra workers are in a period of declininglabor activism and declining effectiveness ofthe labor actions they undertake. The reasons

for this, however, again differ from that of theminers. Whereas the miners are increasinglyinactive due to the torpor related to the buy-out program and increased social distancebetween categories of miners, in Fgra thediffusion of energies as people strategize tomake their lives sits behind declining unionactivism. As one UPRUC worker suggested:

People are basically saturated (with theunion) and they dont come to meetings anylonger. People are divided. Not all are asworse off as others. There are some that livefrom other sources, from relations outside thefactory. Many have children that have left toother countries. And its sufficient for them toget sent $100 a month.Others have left theunion because they think the dues are toolarge. Why should they give this money fool-ishly when nothing is done with it?

Actually, compared to the Jiu Valleysnumerous local-level actions and mineriade,in the Fgra region only the UPRUC hasseen extensive labor-management conflictand this as much because of bitter rivalrybetween two unions, one largely managerialand the other comprised of workers and adrawn-out complicated process of privatiza-tion. Nitramonia and Viromet unions are alsotaken up with internal issues, though manage-ment is not implicated. These unions alsohave a greater history of cooperation withmanagement, Viromet especially. Additio-

nally, at Nitramonia there is a section ofworkers who have joined the Jiu ValleyMiners union and with whom the main unionfrequently disagrees. Even so, it is especiallyinteresting to note that Fgra workers fromall the factories also resonate to MironCozma and the Jiu Valley mineriade. Fgrarank and file workers generally suggest thatforce and violence are inappropriate laborstrategies, but nonetheless admire Cozma forattempting to preserve jobs in the Jiu Valleycrisis.

Domestic Responses: As the householdremains the institution most capable of orga-nizing individuals to access labor and incomeresources, Fgra families and householdsretain considerable strength, at least on the sur-face, in the current crisis. Hard times forceFgraeni to stick together, at the householdlevel. For example, from 1976 to 1989, there

13 One estimate of the costs for illegal emigration is 3,000 Deutsch Marks, a huge expense for most families.


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were an average of 212 divorces per year reg-istered at the Fgra judectorie. This rateincreased for 1990-1996 to 308 per year, buthas declined again from 1997 to the present to265. Cases of family abandonment have alsosteadily declined from 24 cases per yearbetween 1976-1989 to 14 cases per yearbetween 1989 and 1996, to 5 cases annually inthe last three years14. The number of mar-riages, too, has kept pace with the years imme-diately following the revolution. In 1992 therewere 442 marriages in Victoria, Fgra, and

immediate villages and in 1998, 424 (Direciade Statistica 1999). August, in particular, isnow a prime month for marriage. WestEuropean countries, Italy included, close forvacation then. Consequently, young Fg-raeni, men mainly, return home to marry andthen return to Italy. In summer 1999 there were17 August marriages in one week.

Though Fgra households have beenmaintained, there are still disquieting indica-tions of trouble beneath their surface together-ness. Women, in particular, are pressured in thecurrent economic conditions and many in the

region suggest problems of domestic abuse,mental and physical illness, and the entirerange of social problems that comes withnever-ending stress. Women who continue towork in the factories also now often speak of

criticism by men for retaining their jobs.Fgra network relations are also more

precarious as they are caught between pres-sures for their attenuation and their mainte-nance. Like in the mining regions, the costand stress of life in Romania has narrowedthe groups of individuals with whom one

interacts and severely limits the exchangerelations on which Romanian social life ispredicated. One Nitramonia worker describedthe conditions of network confusion:

We had friends until just a few years ago,

but now we mainly stay in our house withourselves. People cant afford to have friendsthese days. We cant afford vacations either.Before (1989), we went to the Black Sea allthe time, but we havent since 1990. The lastwedding we attended was (five months previ-ous) and the gift required that we save forthree months. Last year, too, we were god-parents (na) for my wifes cousin, whichcost us 7 million in last years prices. Eitherway to be asked to be na is a double-edgedsword. If you refuse, it is shameful, and if you

dont you set yourself back monetarily. Wewere the third family that the couple asked tobe na and we are hardly related to them. Atleast our god-children (fini) are in bettershape than us. They are from a village andhave a tractor and a brandy distillery.

Unemployment and the buy-outs in the

Fgra Region: Fgraeni have also res-ponded to the circumstances of their unem-ployment in a largely different manner than JiuValley miners. Whereas the miners were splitapart by the intense and rapid process of thebuy-outs, in Fgra there was less anger butmore petty jealousy about the process. In someways Fgraeni are more used to unemploy-ment as it has steadily increased in the yearssince the Revolution. In the entire town ofFgra, with a population of about 45,000 ofwhich about 20,000 were working duringsocialist years, there are now only about 5,000people formally employed. Consequently,though there were some tensions associatedwith the earlier rounds of unemployment from1990 through 1996, by the time of the first

round of buy-outs unemployment had been sorecurrent it had become normal.The demography of Fgra disponibi-

lization had been widely different from thatwhich took place in the Jiu Valley. Young

14 Other statistical indicators of diverse social conditions in Fgra have remained virtually the same forthe region from 1976, the first year for which we have this data, through the current period. For examplethe frequency of violent crimes and corporal offenses have shown only a slight increase as times havebecome increasingly more difficult, varying from 14 per year in the period 1976-1989 to 17 per year in1990-1996, to 19 per year in the last three year (Judecatorie Fgra 1999).


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men hoping to go to Italy as guest workersand older individuals near their pensionswere the prime participants in 1997 and 1998.In fact, there was such a widespread desire totake the buy-out in the region that unions andmanagement worked hard to convince work-ers to remain. Jealousy arose in certaininstances, where one was actively preventedfrom quitting work. Furthermore, the bought-out were also not so much differentiated eth-nically or regionally from others in the gener-al population. To be sure, there was a certain

degree of manipulation of some Fgraworkers, though the acrimony and the socialdistinction set in motion by the process paledin comparison to the Jiu Valley. As one che-mical operator at Nitramonia said:

Before (disponibilization) they announced

they were going to close our section and those

who wanted to, should sign up for the disponi-

bilization. They put a list on a desk in an office

for those who wanted to sign up. It is normal

that people were afraid that the section would

close and, if they didnt sign up for the dis-

ponibilization they would just become unem-

ployed. So they thought better the Ordonana

because then I can get a few extra million and

get by one way or the other. And so they

signed up willingly, unwillingly, they signed

up to be disponibilized.

This situation, too, has changed in recentyears. The current buy-out has begun to pro-duce some of the same anger and destructive-ness that characterize its results in the JiuValley. Now, despite the favored position of

some regional factories that have beenadvanced to the list of the most-likely andsuccessful targets of privatization (Anony-mous 1999), the economic crisis has causedsome of the factories to begin to close wholesections and to lay-off workers indefinitelycausing considerable distress and a break-down of collegial relations With the recentbuy-out at the Viromet Chemical Companyin Oraul Victoria, for example, according toa large number of workers interviewed, those

who were able to retain their jobs were main-ly relatives of people in power positions inthe factory who traded on knowledge of theirrelationships to preserve their positions. Oneinterview in summer 2000 was especiallypoignant. Then, a skilled worker, employed atthe factory for close to twenty years, brokedown and wept profusely during the inter-view over his bleak future. Not only was heslated to lose his job, but his wife, too, a se-cretary in a near-by village school, was alsothreatened with job loss due to the on-going

restructuring in educational employment.Furthermore, there are also some of the

same dis-information problems that made theJiu Valley buy-outs so problematic. For exam-ple, while state regulations now discouragelump sum payments due to the past difficul-ties with the miner buy-outs, these were stillavailable for workers able to attest to an actu-al investment possibility and file a businessplan pursuant to that investment opportunity.However, workers were first lied to and toldthe buy-out would not happen and then weremisinformed about the possibility of takingtheir severance in a lump sum payment, thusleaving those with some possibility of invest-ment bereft of these chances as well.

This was especially harmful in the Fgraregion since the uses and meaning of severance

pay was also considerably different to Fg-raeni than to Jiu Valley miners. This moneywas almost exclusively used for basic house-

hold expenses or to contribute to a fund usedby family members hoping to emigrate. Some

people invested in cars to be able to more rea-dily get to and from the villages with agricul-

tural produce. Some people even bought trac-tors, but there are few reports of excessive lu-xury purchases, as in the Jiu Valley.

Though unemployed, Fgraeni alsocontinue to work. The labor black market is aprofound problem in the region and an issuethat has prompted the regions unions to jointogether in protest. They want employers toswear off hiring illegal labor and workers toagree to avoid such positions. People in theregion also are more willing to participate in


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retraining programs and entertain other possi-bilities for the few resources that they have.Like the miners, though, they too are caughtup in the Euro-Bingo frenzy, though win-ning the lottery is less a part of their dis-course on their lives than in the Jiu Valley.When posed the question as to what theywould do with the money, if they won a largesum, to a person all spoke of diverse ideas forinvestment.

CONCLUSIONS

What does it matter, then, that those fromthe Jiu Valley and Fgra regions diverge intheir socio-economic responses to stress andcrisis? For one thing, most simplistically,addressing Romanias national socio-eco-nomic woes requires recognition of inter- andintra-regional variation. It is only through thenuanced approach of critical ethnographicanalysis that distinct regional programs ofinvestment and kinds and levels of stateaction can be developed. Without a fine-grained analytic approach to mitigating theeffects of economic unemployment and thesoaring cost of living, national and interna-tional agencies run the risk of either imple-menting wildly inappropriate policies (Fergu-son J. 1994) or of allowing assistance to behijacked by narrow groups of self-interestedpartisans (Wedel J. 1998). The application ofcritical social scientific analysis to ameliorat-ing the effects of post-socialism, while noguarantee of programmatic success, at leastholds out the promise of devising more pre-cise programs to meet specific regional

needs.In this regard, it is apparent that the tworegions under study here will require diffe-rent emphases in their future developmentinitiatives. Thus, labor law enforcementdesigned to limit Black Market abuses,important across the board, seems to be themore significant problem in Fgra than theJiu Valley in the current period. Conversely,infrastructure investment is more significantthere than in Fgra. Similarly, the creation

of entirely new kinds of employment is morecalled for in the Jiu Valley (and no doubt,more problematic, given miner commitmentto the minerit), while privatization and retool-ing the chemical plants would likely be moreeffective for Fgra. Fgraeni, meanwhile,would likely be more receptive to job trainingprograms than their Jiu Valley cousins.Equally significant, the public health andmental health challenges in the regions canonly be addressed when we see the precisevectors and stresses under which diverse

Romanian workers operate. The loss of iden-tity and the angry group life of miners andbought-out miners do not bring about thesame sort of personal crisis that the never-end-ing strategizing for resources, the personaljealousies, and the denigration of the Blackmarket do for Fgra workers. Alcoholism inthe Jiu Valley and in Fgra are, in fact, verydifferent conditions, which require differentapproaches to their mitigation.

Still, the stress of post-socialism andrelated declines in health and general well-being is one sad commonality of bothregions. Increasingly citizens of both regionssuffer from early, untimely death, whosespecter haunts these post-socialist communi-ties. The discourse of death was everywherein Fgra and the Jiu Valley and cries out forethnographic understanding. However, to beameliorative, critical social science must gobeyond mere depiction of funereal practicesand cemetery art and articulate death with thechanging conditions and social relations ofthe living. The Jiu Valley miners, of course,know sudden death as a condition of their

labor and live with it as a matter of pride.Miners, in fact, are more distressed about thepossibilities of early death after retirementthan that in the course of working in themines. To retire with ones pension after 20 ormore years in thesubteran and then die with-in one or two years of your retirement, a notuncommon experience, was considered byminers ultimate illustration of their lives andfates and their denigration and abandonmentby society.


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In Fgra, the experience of death is, likethe experience of unemployment, a steadydrip. Cave-ins are replaced by aneurysms andexplosions by stroke. Here, too, like so muchelse in this troubled region, death and itsmeaning only signifies the sad growth ofpetty jealousies in the midst of crisis. Thewords of an UPRUC worker, struggling tomaintain a life of dignity in the midst of dis-integration, thus provide a fitting cap to ouranalysis and remind us of the true purposes ofethnographic research: understanding and

responding to the human condition:One of my buddies at work died at 43 and

one of the shop foremen (maistru) was 41. Hedied of prostate cancer. About 20-25 of myacquaintances died in the last 4-5 years. The36-year-old director of marketing at UPRUCdied 2 years ago. Another neighbor died at 51of cancer and then there was an 18-year-oldkid who fell from a train. This kind of unex-pected death is the worst for the family,because you have to get together the neces-

sary money in just a day or two. If someoneis sick for along time, then at least you canslowly get together money for the expensesthat will follow. We think about and talkabout death all the time at work. It cant helpbut affect our work. When you hear of some-one dieing at 60 or 70, then you think he hada full life15, but when one dies in their 30s or40s, this is a great tragedy. When one of ourcolleagues dies we help in various ways. Wedig the grave, we give money depending onwhat we can afford; but no one says anything

if you cant give much, because we are allneedy. A funeral costs a great deal of money.You usually invite 200 to a restaurant forsoup, beer, and a second course. That used tobe meat, but now its mainly just potatoes andother vegetables. It is still expensive. Thetotal cost of a funeral is about 7 million lei.But you dont change traditions, because peo-ple will laugh at you. It is better to bear thefinancial costs than have people talk aboutyou behind your back.

15 Later I asked him whether he really thought 60 years a full life and he responded that he thought so. Fora middle class American, such as the senior author, an admission that a 60 year life expectancy is a fulllife, is a sad statement, indeed, and a true marker of the state of Romanian workers in post-socialism.

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This paper compares the responses of twodifferent groups of workers to Romania's eco-nomic crisis. In the literature on the EastCentral European transformation, whereworkers are discussed at all, they aredescribed in largely homogenous terms. Thegroups discussed here, the miners of the JiuValley and the chemical workers of theFagaras region, have many surface similari-

ties including a mono-industrial profile, highunemployment, and extensive labor activism.However, research suggests that the specificway by which workers are incorporated intoregional labor systems and the particulars ofregional production result in highly variableresponses to crisis both within and betweenregions. In the Jiu Valley, mining is the nearsole livelihood. As the mine dominates

regional mentalities it also shapes polarizedrelations between miners and superiors,between active and unemployed miners, inhousehold relations, and in miner views ofpolitics and the state. In contrast, in Fagarassources of labor and income are diffused.While the chemical plants were the chiefregional employer, Fgra workers, alsohave greater access to village occupations

and resources and other alternatives, includ-ing emigration. This contributes to somewhatcalmer labor relations, more stable domesticrelationships, but greater interpersonal jeal-ousy. Given the differences in these basicproduction systems, the paper goes on to ana-lyze the nature of political and social respon-ses to their economic problems and suggestdifferent possibilities for intervention.

ABSTRACT

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Stress Among Romanian Workers

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