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3 global Markets and Local Conflicts in Mercury Mining Industrial Restructuring and Workplace Hazards at the Almaden Mines in the Early Twentieth Century alfredo menéndez-navarro I n 2005, as a means of protecting european citizens and their environment from mercury’s highly toxic compounds, the european Commission adopted a “mercury strategy” calling for a reduction in mercury emissions and for measures to cut its use.1 the new policy seriously affected the almaden mercury mines, bringing to a close a spanish state-owned venture that had been the world’s largest mercury producer and exporter for 450 years, supplying one-third of the world’s mined mercury.2 almaden had played an extraordinarily important role in the overall spanish economy since the mid-sixteenth century, when amalgamation became the most widely used metallurgical technique for the processing of silver from the americas. this led to a dramatic increase in demand for mercury and thus almaden’s monopoly of the international mercury trade.3 Occupational health hazards are inextricably linked to the history of the almaden mines. Chronic mercury poisoning was the almost inevitable corollary of employment there and was responsible both for the greatly reduced life expectancy of the miners and for the shortage of workers. mine managers traditionally tackled this problem by expansion of the labor market rather than by technical improvements in working conditions. however, this trading pattern and preindustrial management system were severely challenged by the independence of spain’s american colonies. attempts by mine engineers since the mid-nineteenth century to introduce major technical reforms to increase productivity and reduce production costs were systematically postponed, giving the almaden mines a growing reputation for industrial backwardness.4 48 / ChaPTer 3 in the early twentieth century, the almaden mines underwent a farreaching rationalization process that was intended to represent a definitive step forward in its economic and industrial modernization. Changes were prompted by a new international situation and inspired by the belief of political reformers that technical intervention could overcome spanish social and economic backwardness. On the one hand, cyanide processes had progressively supplanted amalgamation since the late nineteenth century and had reduced the demand for mercury, despite an increase in its industrial applications.5 Furthermore, the long-established primacy of almaden in the international mercury market, severely affected by colonial independence, had been additionally challenged in the second half of the nineteenth century by changes in trading patterns and the entry into the market of mercury from other locations, considerably reducing its price.6 On the other hand, after the 1898 spanish-american War and the loss of its last american colonies, the spanish government moved towards a more interventionist stance, promoting social and economic reforms. professional elites and reformers favored the understanding of political crises in terms of technical inefficiency, presenting technical intervention as critical to the social and economic modernization of the country.7 Following these guidelines, the state-owned company was placed under the control of a board of directors, which implemented a new managerial policy focused on technical transformation of the production process and the long-postponed intensification of workforce efficiency. this restructuring brought to an end a tradition of management that had the long-term preservation of the workforce as a primary aim. the objective of this chapter is to complement others in the present volume by examining the ways in which economic restructuring in the mercury industry and the strategies pursued by industrial management directly affected the bodies of the mine workers who labored in these historic deposits. it is suggested here that there are clear parallels between the activities of the almaden mines and the ways in which other large corporations exploited natural resources and processed toxic substances during the past century. this chapter demonstrates that the progress of industrial health in the spanish mercury mines cannot be understood without a careful appreciation of the strategies that were being followed in pursuit of greater industrial efficiency and the involvement of the spanish state with production facilities in general. the conflicts and struggles of the workforce, culminating in a series of allout strikes at almaden, provoked fresh controversies and policies regarding the use of medical expertise in the workplace, where the rise of laboratory science contributed to the management of workers and the resolution of labor disputes. the following section begins with a consideration of the origins of medical practices in the industry. The roots of Conflict: workplace hazards in Preindustrial almaden medical historiography has traced recognition of the...

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