"Valentín"

"Valentín"

Oral testimony from a Steel Cable section worker

Mariana Stoler

2019

Mariana Stoler

Mariana Stoler

Spanish-sp

Audio

41 seconds

They looked for people in Entre Ríos [argentine countryside], from the country, so they could tolerate the heat, because the 2.000 kilos ingots, before, were hooked by hand… You, hook and take by the hand the red-hot ingot… Everything was hooked by hand. Not today, today everything is electromagnetic, electric cranes, you can operate it from far away. So back then, people could not tolerate it, they worked for a month and they left, they could not hold it. So, the employer brought workers from the countryside, hard, rude people, so they could work.
That is why they search for workers there, in the countryside, they were the ones who could tolerate the most. (…) My father was one of them, he came from Entre Ríos and began the work and within a month he wanted to leave. My father used to work at the coal mine in Entre Ríos, burning out coal, nevertheless, he wanted to leave Santa Rosa.