VII. Roasted workers.

  A Trotskyist flyer that was found at the factory in 1966.  

Although Santa Rosa´s workers took hazard as intrinsic to their job, there were complaints about the working conditions, especially at the factory´s hot area.

In 1966, a trotskyist group of workers reported that Santa Rosa´s employers were so worried about obtaining more and more profits that they dismissed the worker´s health. In this sense, this trotskyist group came up with the idea of hanging a sign on the Furnaces section´s door with the inscription Obrero al Spiedo (Roasted workers). They also accused the Furnaces´s shop stewards of being so “cool” that they did not even have noticed the heat suffered by their comrades.

Different groups of workers used the production problems to battle for the union leadership. In the early 70s, the complaints about working conditions led to a wildcat strike that lasted almost a month. As a consequence, the traditional union leaders resigned from the factory, and a new group of shop stewards emerged.