Writings By Location| Toxic Chemical Roulette: The Mines of Potosí | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
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| Dyn-o-mite! |
Then there are the usual supplies of soda, candy, cigarettes, face masks (though miners rarely use them), and, the most interesting of all (to us, at least), dynamite. Sticks of dynamite line the shelves in these shops, coming from Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and other countries. The most potent stuff is from Argentina, and costs 2 Bolivianos a stick. When you throw in a ziploc bag full of ammonium nitrate (to increase the potency of the explosion) and a three-minute fuse with detonator, the total cost for this weapon of minor destruction is 12 Bolivianos, or about US$ 1.60. And that's the gringo price, which is what we paid. I imagine actual miners get it for half that. What's even scarier, though, is that anyone can walk up and buy this stuff. (Only in Potosí and one other huge mining town, though; anywhere else, a special permit is needed, which I suppose is some relief.) That includes children as young as eight years old, some of whom are already working in the mines by then.
After loading up on supplies, we drove to the mines, where Juan fitted our hats, talked to the miners and security guards about routes, and filled us in on the history of the mines. Working in the mines is about as healthy as tap water in Afghanistan. The average life expectancy of miners is a mere 40-45 years. Some of them start as early as age 8, and most of them do it simply because their fathers did it, and their fathers before them, so it just becomes "the thing to do". Though happily, this is becoming less common, the trend is far from vanishing permanently.
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| Cerro Rico |
About 15% of the mines are government-run: these are larger, better maintained, and a little bit safer (better protective gear, at least), and offer better, steady pay. Competition for these positions is fierce, however, and miners have to pay for these luxuries. The rest of the mines are cooperatives, where the miners earn according to what they extract. They generally work six days a week, 8-9 hours a day, and on the weekend, they sell their raw extractions to the highest bidder, with the ore still in the rock, since the facilities to do the extractions are too expensive to set up in Bolivia. On good months, they may each get anywhere from 700 to 1200 Bolivianos (about US$100-180). Some months, they may find very little, or the market for zinc or copper may dry up, and they'll get virtually nothing.
Most shocking is the "benefits" for which these miners have fought for decades. Miners can join a sort of union that provides them and their families with health benefits throughout their lives. The cost to join is 3000 Bolivianos. Given the numbers above, it should come as little surprise that it usually takes at least 3-6 years of work by the miner to save up this much money, and sometimes even more than that. Many can never afford it at all.
But the cost is only the beginning. It used to be that the government would permit retirement pay out pension benefits after miners turned 65. But given the huge number of premature deaths given to silicosis, it was basically unheard of for any miner to live that long and still work enough to live on. The government later dropped the age limit 60, with much fanfare and little improvement. Today, the rules state that a miner can retire when his lungs are 50% contaminated by silicosis...in other words, about to be dead anyway. Physicals are required every four years, and if a miner's lung capacity has diminished to below 50%, he can retire and receive his meager pension of about 100 Bolivianos a month. Woo hoo. And that still requires the 3000 Bs. payment up front. Hell, even an Enron accountant could figure out that such an investment is unlikely to ever amount to anything.
