The mining sector under capitalist transformation: Romanian and Hungarian industrial paradigms

1 INTRODUCTION: POST-SOCIALISM, A COMMON PRESENT

For socialist Romania mining used to be a total world that organized all the spheres of life, such as living, working, entertainment, eating or raising children and one that has remodeled peasants into commuters and then into proletarians. When it ceased to exist all the institutions of the mines that had an essential social role and central locus in the towns are moved to the margins or sold away and full of debts. With post-socialism, the administrative buildings of the mines are no longer in the immediate optics of the town people and make the case for a mystified history. Very much like spaces, workers' lives are shaped by the large economic determinants they incur. One next status that miners are subjected to alongside the transformations of the economic models assumed by their countries, is that of migrants. Whereas important studies, such as David Kideckel's work on Valea Jiului (the biggest mining region of Romania), share light on the need of most miners—starting with the 90's—to migrate to Western European Countries and work on different sectors of the economy, this article aims to explore a different type of migration. The changes underpinning in the Northern county of Maramures represent a special part of the history of the Romanian industry and relate to a process in which a segment of the mining sector was translated by capital to mining regions of Hungary in early post-socialism. While migration from Romania to Hungary remains an understudied topic, the article presents some of the characteristics of this type of migration through the prism of an ethnographic account of a community crossing a frontier and trying to preserve some of the elements they knew to have from socialism: their solidarity, hope, and joy regarding their solidarity.

To start a critical discussion about how the industrial worker, specifically the Romanian miner, has been cast in a shadow cone starting from the beginning of the post-socialist period after being the star of the socialist working class, one must first define post-socialism and what do we understand by the post-socialist transformation. The work of Burawoy and Verdery offers an compelling account of ethnographies that manage to prove the opposing ways in which post-socialism works and the complex relationship between the socialist past and the post-socialist changes that can be viewed not only through the lens of “great transformations,” but also by looking at everyday life' reactions and forms through which people are reshaping their lives (Burawoy & Verdery, 1999). Alongside their work, important studies about post-socialism examine: mobilization of mines and steelworks (Crowley, 1997), miners' survival strategies (Siegelbaum & Walkowitz, 1995), marginalization of labor (Arandarenko et al., 2001) theorize Soviet and Post-Soviet political economy at the national level and the workplace (Leitzel, 1997) and discuss the faith of the dispossessed workers that the economic models in Central Eastern Europe have produced (MacLeod, 2018; Morris, 2016). The rich literature on post-socialism throughout this region provides material to understand Romania's situation by showing the impact of change on daily life, as opposed to trying to explain post-socialism with the terms we already have, such as socialism (Burawoy & Verdery, 1999).

The analytical uniqueness of the Central and Eastern European region is given to the specific profiles of transition to the European Single Market (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014; Gabor, 2010; Jäger and Springler 2015; Johnson & Barnes, 2015; Pavlínek, 2016). Scholarship has put emphasis on explaining the comparatively successful integration of these states into the world market, compared to the insertion story of Latin America's countries, also by using the lens of industrial inquiry (Bohle & Greskovits, 2006; Drahokoupil, Van Apeldoorn, & Horn, 2009). As I will show further in this analysis, many Central Eastern European countries undertook the hyper-integrationist strategy, compared to Latin America and Asia, underpinning neo-developmentalist approaches to the world market strategies of globalization (Ban, 2012; Blyth, 2013). While this provides for a central point in the constituting types of dependence capitalism with different levels of social protection, I suggest discussions on the specificity of the region be more bundled with the industrial workers' narratives and responses to post-socialist change. An excellent insight into the multiple ways that post-socialist regimes transform the community, labour and social relations by analyzing also the specificities of Eastern European regimes in the 1980's is Burawoy's analysis (Burawoy, 1985). Here, important attention is given to the influence of socialism in all the spheres of life in order to better capture the changes for the industrial sector and for the workers' status. Both the way in which life within industry came to be changed in 1954 and 1990 transformed the profile of the industrial worker from it is “symbolic visibility” and “strategic availability” to be casted away into precarity (Burawoy, 1985, 19,990). The planning of labor in early socialism can be the subject of an emancipatory political project, yet it is strongly connected to the figure of the socialist, often industrial, worker. The socialist state tries to embrace at the same time the new and the old workers into the production and to make them productive and the productive consensus was always a fight between ambiguous positions. In the case of Romania, the “planners” of society needed a long time to learn to do the planning and at the beginning of the socialist period the industrial workers have very small wages Cucu (2019). During the following decades, the industrial worker, specifically the miner, came to be have a position of great prestige, that faded into ever more precarious position with the post-socialist period. Thus, the following story of how a community cannot be reproduced anymore and the responses of people trying to cross borders as communities or to keep elements of solidarity while migrating, is completed by the path the industrial worker had undertaken during the socialist years.

What I have tried to explain so far, synthesized, is the multifaceted character of the post-socialist genre, post-socialist realities being the core of understanding the change it brought. Further, I will start a critical discussion of the macrodeterminants that made the Romanian case different from the Hungarian one, to continue by looking at how these economic and political determinants have shaped people's lives.

Whereas post-socialism was a common moment for the countries in the Central and Eastern regions of Europe, this moment played out differently for in the specific cases of each country. In the case of Romania, the radical neo-liberal regime, with the concomitant industrial policies, foreign investment, and the relation between transnational actors and local elites, had the effect of dispossessing the worker in a gradual manner of social protections and orienting him towards migration. This article concentrates on demonstrating the forms in which the disembedded, radical type of neo-liberalism that characterizes post-socialist Romania affected the life narratives of the industrial worker by emphasizing migration and precarity. The examination of regional structures through the lens of industrial policies aims at a better understanding of the post-socialist transformations on the labor market, the relationship between labor and capital and the emerging forms of precarious work and individuals. While the working trajectories of industrial laborers during the post-socialist transition and the focus on the special category of miners have been key dimensions of the academic interest in late socialism and post-socialist regimes, there are still important gaps to fill in the literature.

The article sets out to contribute to that by concentrating on an essential segment of Romanian mining workers—the ones who did not change to a different economic sector, but who kept their professional identity in the context of migration to different states, especially to Hungary. I examine the specific ways in which the Romanian case of post-socialist transition is different from the Hungarian one, through the lens of industrial policies. Different varieties of capitalisms have unfolded throughout the Central and Eastern European region, and the heterogeneous aspect of the area is due to a wide spectrum of factors. The most important elements are the communist past; the links between national elites and transnational agents; the economic profile and the different political dynamics in which the countries have engaged (Ban, 2016; Bohle & Greskovits, 2014). The main trajectories that Bohle and Greskovits point out for this set of countries are neo-corporatist capitalism, embedded neo-liberalism and radical neo-liberalism (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014). My input consists of exploring the working conditions of the miners, the process of migration, the changing relationship between the miner as an industrial worker and the state and between the state and the industrial sector through the post-socialist regime. Specifically, I will focus on spotting the work trajectory of the miners who worked at the mine of Băiuț—of the Maramureș region of Romania—in the socialist period, who later moved to work in Hungary in the mining industry and due course in other labor sectors. “How does this type of migration occur and how does it affect the worker?” and “how is this linked to broader geopolitical interactions?” are the questions that the article aims at answering.

To this end, I used a set of qualitative data-gathering methods combining a semi-structured interview with participant observation and the analysis of secondary data, represented by a series of documents found in the archives of the mine, documents of the communist regime and official statistics of Băiuţ and Mór. The use of the unstructured interview, in this case, forms an oral history, where individuals describe a period of their lives and how they understood the transformational processes that unfolded (Portelli, Perks, & Thomson, 2006; Ritchie, 1995). The set of 25 collected interviews follows the personal stories of miners on the dimensions of working conditions, perceptions of the mining reforms and the closing of the mines in Romania, migration, the relations with the intermediary firms and the new mining community in Hungary. To trace the migration, I picked individuals who worked in the Băiuț mine and who transitioned to working in the mines of Hungary. I selected respondents both Romanian and Hungarian descend to see if the two categories had different prospects in this transformation.

2 THE DIFFUSION OF NEOLIBERALISM: ALTERNATE PATHS TOWARDS LIBERALIZATION AND DEMOCRACY

Existing literature on the varieties of capitalism in the Eastern part of Europe has discerned some contributing factors, such as the communist past; the links between national elites and transnational agents; the economic profile and the different political dynamics which the countries have engaged with (Ban, 2016; Bohle & Greskovits, 2014). The literature around industrial relations and mining concentrates only on the idea of precarization and job transition of miners, or on the macro aspects, such as the economic reforms undertaken by post-socialist Romania. Yet, there is a lack of research that looks at specific transformations in people's working lives through the lens of industrial policies. The article aims to fill that gap by looking at regional structures within the framework of national industrial policies. In the context of post-socialist transition, Romania represents a case of radical integration into free markets, characterized by repeated austerity measures such as shock therapy, a strong orientation to the market and foreign orchestration of elite political dynamics'.

In the industrial sector, Romania needed to align with the evolving trend of European policies, by making large qualitative changes that harmed the employment rates and the life and labor narratives of workers (Ban, 2016; Ban, 2014).

The transformations in this field within the European Union capture a transition from mainstream discussions on the governments' implication into the industry to the accentuated role of the EU in the Industrial Policies. Another important aspect is the shift of interest away from the encouragement of sunrising industrial sectors or national champions towards the expansion of the private sector. Gradually, the EU strategy of Industrial Competitiveness encompassed instruments such as tax breaks, subsidies, and deregulations (El-Agraa, 2011). The Lisbon Strategy in 2000 advocated for entrepreneurship, for small and medium enterprises and their cooperation which implied important and sudden transformations in the economy. These structural changes heavily affected Romania's uncompetitive industry: the consequences of the shock therapy measure the government leads to a dramatic decrease in Romanian industrial production, a widely spread phenomenon of bankruptcy and high working-migration rates. Together with the economic crisis in 2009, the European Union's' structural changes affected categorically industrial employment (El-Agraa, 2011).

The 2007 “An Energy Policy for Europe” and the 2009 “Third Energy Package” sustained the enlargement of alternative energy sources by adding specific taxes, such as the carbon energy tax. Together with other energy policies, the new environmental criteria represented further obstacles for Romanian Industry (Ambroziak, 2017).

The 2008 crisis harmed the workers due to the gradual replacement of social protection with market-oriented logic. The worker, in the hire-and-fire-working-environment that has been created, becomes a flexible individual and a risk-taker under the shadow of uncertainties about the economic regime (Bernhardt et al., 2009; Molé, 2010; Paret & Gleeson, 2016). The migration of the workforce represents a serious phenomenon in the case of post-socialist Romania and for the industrial workers, especially in the case of miners, it brings up the issue of job transition in a great number of cases. With privatization, most workers no longer inherited any advantages from the communist period and he can no longer claim expertise or access the means of production, but some individuals emerged from the communist period with a set of advantages intact (Cucu & Culic, 2012). It is often stressed that the individuals who worked in foreign trade or engaged in speculative work in the communist era are the ones that manage to take advantage of the capitalist transformations. In the city of Baia Mare, people who had previous experience in the speculative market during communism are the ones that managed to create firms that would later act as labor market intermediaries for the miners. While miners relocated to countries like Hungary, the entrepreneurial individuals maximized their interests within the new structure of opportunities.

Fundamental attributes of the Visegrad group of states are the remaking of the group into one of complex, export-oriented manufacturing industries; the strategy of attracting transnational capital by improving the infrastructure and by way of formal schemes and agencies geared at the new business investments. At the same time, the states had problems with the coordination of monetary and fiscal policies, which lead to macrosocial instability. Yet, the group members managed to keep a strong sphere of social protection that included individuals that could no longer work for various reasons too (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014).

The Hungarian elites' central accomplishment was managing to adapt to the conditions imposed by the last decades of state socialism. They succeeded to entertain collaborations with the public representatives of the communists while also collaborating against the same communists in reform-making. About Hungary's large external debt, an elite formed of bureaucrats started to partake in a European financial network, by having access to specific congresses, to research funds and training in “negotiation” and “cooperation” with foreign investors. What resulted from these early collaborations and the partnerships with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from 1982 on, was that Hungary succeeded in shaping a process of gradual and non-radical transition.

Moreover, the Hungarian intellectual field acted as a propagator of neoliberal ideas supporting the transition, tailoring these ideas to the conditions of Hungary at that time. Thus, Hungary becomes a laboratory where the elites planned “the “great transformation” (Polanyi, 2013) seeking to divvy up the privatization opportunities with Western actors who also saw in Hungary an attractive field for investment (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014).

Romania's trajectory on the elites' socialization into the neo-liberal sphere of ideas is different from that of Hungary. While the Hungarian elites had deeper and longer-lasting connections with the Western version of neoliberal ideas, in Romania the elites had been socialized in this respect only before the conclusion of the communist regime. An important measure in this direction targeted people nearing retirement. The Visegrad group used retirement as a cushion against the massive unemployment rates emerging in this period. The boom recorded in retirement rates, both through early retirement and the disability benefits to people who lost their job, featured an increased from 3% of early retirees in 1990 to 80% for 1994 (Vanhuysse, 2006 Divide and pacify, 7–95). This large segment of the population contributed to reducing unemployment, but there was also an extensive move towards new informal sectors. They managed to avoid poverty through this safe income or by opening a family business. (Szalai, 2007, 121–25 in Bohle and Greskovits). Individuals who had worked in mining and who gained, through this type of work, several privileges during socialism were able to enjoy the same benefits on retirement. This boom in retirement is a potential explanation for the demand for labor in the Hungarian mining industry starting mid-last decade of the twentieth century and up through 2006–2007.

Due to the similar initial economic profile of the countries in the Visegrad group, each of them had specialized to attract foreign investments. Governments kept certain parts of the legacy of socialist industry intact and invested in them while developing new avenues and by these means succeed to hold on to a significant share of the European production (15% in 2007 in the European production of complex manufacturing—especially auto parts and other supplements) (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014). For the case of Hungary, the areas with a very old mining tradition of wood and coal industries remained privileged. The last coal mine in Hungary shut down in 2014 in Hungary amid EU directives on the replacement of the types of activities affecting the environment with alternative sources of energy. The same areas of socialist tradition in a particular industry become spaces for new factories devoted to new types of manufactures (Bohle & Greskovits, 2014).

3 THE DISPLACEMENT OF THE MINING SECTOR BY CAPITAL: THE ANTICIPATION OF PROFIT AND THE EXPERIENCE OF MIGRATION

Miners are a special part of the socialist working class as their evolution as a group reflects the changes taking place in the Romanian society as a whole. Generally speaking, the path the miners, as a fraction of the working class, are taking starts with social prestige and privileges enjoyed under socialism and ends with their banishment into obscurity in discussions on changes brought by post-socialism. Each interview with miners contains the line: “Mine is very hard work.” The statement functions almost like a slogan revealing sentiments of frustration on their stories about work, and pride, which derives from the identity of a miner.

Among the transformations that neoliberalism brings in the sphere of social stratification are the “subalternity of work” (Kideckel, 2008), the birth of a middle class in urban areas and the emergence of entrepreneurship mirroring the coagulation of capital. A new conceptualization of social classes, adapted to the post-communist social context, involves changes in issues such as ownership, control of the means of production and control over other people's labor power (Cucu & Culic, 2012). In the social hierarchy of new advantages, the position of the former industrial workers—supervised workers of the means of production—and the position of the entrepreneurs, with control over other individuals' labor power, is a conflictual one. This advantage kept from socialism speaks very well about social polarization and how structures vary for laborers and the new class of entrepreneurs. For the new class developing on these advantages, what is interesting is the twist from a classic type of human resources management by opposing the classical entrepreneurial logic of the past socialist experiences.

Relocating the labor force from Băiuţ to mining areas in Hungary was a move initiated by many entrepreneurs from Baia Mare who owned certain private companies in the town at the beginning of the post-communist period. These companies were dealing with glass production or real estate and it seems counterintuitive at first that they were able to start negotiations with representatives of the mines in Hungary. But, during the time these firms began to organize these types of moves, the economic activity they were engaged in was also speculative. To work within the real estate business, for example, at the time, required control over a swathe of the market and a sustained effort to pinpoint the sources of profit, a proto form of how real estate sales work today. The fact that these entrepreneurs got to notice changes, such as the need for labor in Hungary, may occur given the speculative activity they embarked in. They traveled to Hungary and made contact with representatives of the Hungarian mines. According to the reports collected, it is this dynamic that coagulates the translation of the workforce at first as a project, then as a business.

Respondents explain how they found out about the possibility of working abroad. Some heard about the jobs from former colleagues and others talk about having a relative who worked at the County Agency for Labor Force Employment in Baia Mare who informed them. Some even came across advertisements in the newspapers. Throughout this narrative, what is striking is the uncertainty of that run for a job when there are only a few details disclosed about it. These disoriented movements of individuals who only know that work promises a higher salary, declaring at the same time that they were fearful of working in a coal mine, or a uranium mine, speak about their level of precariousness.

While applying for the job was a possibility open to all miners, a selection made the intermediary company looked at how well they spoke Hungarian. Also, former colleagues already working in Hungary described the candidates. One miner, going through one of the companies' selections in 2006, narrates how he had tried a year before leaving but was not accepted: “We applied in writing in Baia Mare at this company, (situated) next to UDMR (…) They were cautious with selecting people then.” The selected ones were also from Baia Mare or Szeckler people and many spoke better Hungarian—“I speak very well but they speak better Hungarian, they speak Hungarian at home also.” It depended on those who were already abroad: “I think they were asked how people were (the candidates) and if they work well. And I failed the first time, but then after I tried a second time I managed to get out, too.” The interviews suggest that the company's responsibilities consist of: checking the workers' backgrounds, translating professional qualifications (without which they could not work) then transporting them to the mines. There they had several employees in administrative and managerial posts.

The interviews reveal a series of abuses and violations of rights to which miners are subjected during and after transferring to Hungary. A case of a Romanian miner who only spends 3 weeks in Hungary is demonstrative in this sense. He details how he was told that he will work in the research of ore compositions, but after the period of training he found out that the investigations are closed and that he has to work in the mines, with uranium. Then, in a nervous breakdown, he decides to return home, while his brother remains to work in the mine for 7 years: “I worked a week in uranium, but after that, a colleague who was there with us got hit, he got his back a little scratched and was hospitalized for about three weeks and the uranium that we were working with causes strong infections.” We used to only work naked because of the high temperature of over 40 degrees “(…) both my daughters were sick with measles and when I called home my wife was crying on the phone so I got on the train and I went home. I hated being abroad very much, I did not even wait to meet with my brother who worked in the mine.”

The miners described the confusion about their work: documents, payment, and security. On one hand, they say that the process of calculation of their income was not explained to them. But, they were not informed that they were both paying taxes to both the Romanian and the Hungarian state. What often appears mentioned in interviews is the difference between their wage and those of local Hungarians. Miners say they received less money than the Hungarians and did not have access to the best job positions because those belonged to the locals (although their qualifications would have allowed them to compete for those jobs): “We were paid less than the Hungarians, we did not have health insurance there, if I went to the doctor I could not go (only in Romania).” We had days off at the end of the week, but we would still work (on weekends) because it was subject to overpay; they paid well over the weekend. “The salary was good. It was about 2,000 US dollars first, something like this, and we were paid by the hour and the wages were much better than home, but we did not have all the rights as the ones working there.”

In the case of workplace accidents, as reflected in the interviews, the intermediary firms did not take upon them the responsibility to provide transportation (or any form of medication on the road) back to Romania. Another miner described how he was cut working with uranium and had to pay for the initial treatment in Hungary and then to go home by train. Some of the companies were negotiating for workers to be paid for free days on medical grounds by the Hungarian company that owned the mine, but most miners argued that they were not paid for these days, that those were considered holidays.

As for the days off, they say they felt both constrained and motivated to work during the weekend because they were paid more. That is indicative of the job difficulty and the amount of time spent working. The amount of time for rest, on the contrary, seems to be much lower since they reported that they only benefited from the minimal number of holidays that workers received. Thus, most say they had 20 days of leave and were not granted seniority bonuses, bonuses for working underground, or extra leave days for workers with children. While the local workers enjoyed these benefits, they were not applied to the work of the migrants.

On the cultural level, internalizing the situation of being “the other” does not only translate into visible discrimination from the Hungarian locals but is also seen through the failure to recognize the cultural identity of individuals and through the quest to strip them of their identity. Some miners mentioned stories about Hungarian workers from Romania that constantly tried to pass as “domestics,” pursuing a goal of identity self-assimilation as a resistance strategy. Additionally, Romanians are repeatedly informed by Hungarian locals that they do not like the fact that they work there. Their identity was not recognized also by the fact that religious holidays that they respect did not qualify to be days off, only the days considered by the Hungarian state as holidays.

Miners say they managed to visit Baiut only twice a year, usually in the summer, because during religious holidays which they celebrated they had no days off, or only a few of them could go to ensure there would not be too many people missing from work. At the same time, on public holidays in Hungary and days declared as so by the Hungarian State, there was no working in the mines, but for the immigrant workers, those days were not paid: “When there were holidays—that were paid holidays in Hungary—then we were free: Christmas, Easter (Romanian Easter was not considered a holiday, only the Hungarian holidays were). I was free but they would not pay us leave. It was as if I was not working, the Hungarians received money for those days while we did not.”

The idea and the imminent reality of the departure unfolded inside the respondents' minds when they talk about the fear of working in mines under high-risk conditions, such as coal or uranium mines. Most explain the decision to leave, despite this fear, though the following fatalistic reasoning: “accidents can happen wherever you are, you could be at the uranium (mine), or at the non-ferrous mine (considered to be less dangerous)” or “there is no place/time that is chosen for you to die.” The psychological resorts appear to function as a self-copying mechanism while facing a situation they could no longer avoid or ought not to avoid because the individual's and family's well-being depend on it. The first experience with the Hungarian mines takes place through the interposition of these emotions and it is described as a shock on the advanced technology and immediately visible differences to the Băiuț mine. Miners narrate how they perceived the new mines, having contradictory feelings: “When the levels of gas in the air increased, at Băiuţ we would not measure them, but here in Hungary they are measured and here they would not use dynamite (as an explosive). And coal is softer than iron, but there they blow up with a weaker explosive.” A miner says he had never seen a mine giving off so much light. The Băiuţ mine was not well lit while at those in Hungary “you can see as clearly as outside.” Despite the fear, they say they were in shock about the degree of technology of the new mines. This makes the respondents have a good first impression of the place and get an idea early on about the working conditions.

The workers from Băiuţ came to earn a work income that allowed them to buy houses after some time and settle in Hungary. The story of precarity for other miners that go through the process of professional reconversion is different. Although they are the victims of various abuses orchestrated by the Romanian firms and they internalize an image of themselves in this context as different/the others, they make for success stories in a sense. They achieved a favorable living situation: they have good wages, their families moved together with them in due course and the working conditions in the mines of Hungary (despite the negative treatment by the intermediate companies and the other workers) entail a steady series of measures of labor protection. The analytical difficulty in labeling this type of migration points to the complexity of the dynamic. Both the progress of the migrants and the subject of the new entrepreneur are divergent outcomes of the post-socialist transformations.

In the case of the Băiuţ mine, the passing decades did not bring great progress in ensuring the necessary measures to work without being at risk. The workers also faced job insecurities because they are not aware of political decisions on their fate taken by the mine management.

The last piece of the antagonism that this article brings to the fore is the working conditions at the Hungarian mines. After framing the image of the Băiuţ mining area and the outcomes of radical policies established by the Romanian state, the portrayal of the Hungarian mines appears as a presumed alternative or a hypothetical turn that the mines in Romania could have undertaken in different circumstances. From the workers' descriptions, we find out that their work was easier in these mines. The standards on the amount of duty are lower and the level of technology compensates for a part of the physical labor. But this type of work, according to the miners, was also very demanding in other ways. For an assistant miner who had to ensure the best operation of the conveyor belt, he explains that this type of work requires a lot of concentration, attention and repetitive movement. This is challenging and difficult, involving special physical labor that can be strenuous and alienating. For other tasks, the mining equipment carried by miners, which was much heavier here, implied the need for a great dose of physical strength. The workers at the uranium mines in Hungary argued that although the conditions were good and would not affect the individual's health in the long run, the work was still hindered by the high temperatures. The package of worker protection measures was well-placed in the case of these mines, a factor that can be significant, taking into consideration the workplace standards set by the European Union integration directives. Even for the pre-integration period, workers describe a very serious system of protection and measures that ensured the proper reproduction of the labor force.

As for the health of the workers, there was no “medical caravan” as in socialist Romania that used to come and check on the health of the miners. “Whereas Hungarian miners benefited from provided medical care, for the Romanian miners, this was not an option, as they had access to healthcare only in Romania. In the case of illness, they had to travel back to the country. All these elements made the level of organizing into labor unions minimal in the case of Romanian miners: “We did not have reasons to do it, as well as with whom to start.” Some of them declared themselves amazed at first by the lack of the miners' riots here, since the miners' strikes occurred often in Băiuț. They declared that in Hungary discussing the problems could be done through the mediation of the unions, which had greater weight in the decision-making process here. Yet, the problems of the Romanian workers were related to the abuses on the part of the Romanian firm, as discussed before.

The shutting-down of the mines was delayed in Hungary and mining activity grew here while in other countries in Eastern Europe the level of activity of this industry had fallen abruptly. Yet, the mines were still closed in the light of the decisions taken at the EU level to stop specific methods of producing energy and to replace them with alternative sources. At the level of the Hungarian state, in closing the mines, the first who were made redundant were the posted workers, so the Transylvanians were laid off with the first closing orders. The delay in closing the mines was doubled by attracting investments towards the mono industrial regions. Regions were exposed to financial disaster by extinguishing their main economic activities. Thus, all individuals who had settled in these areas during the time and who were working on mining managed to find other jobs in some months. Most of them work at the automotive factories in the area, in which case the great demand for labor renders the skill requirements to be minimal.

For Romanian workers who have not moved to Hungary, this was a disadvantage because the new factories imposed on the workers the condition that they have a residence in the Hungarian state to be hired. The path that most Romanian workers took is that of migrating to the Western countries, where they worked in construction, or wherever the needed level of professional retraining was lower. All miners declare the frustration they felt because they wanted “to work the years necessary for retirement and not to worry anymore” and they were unable to do that. Those migrating to other countries declare themselves all the more dissatisfied with the fact that they felt much less respected there.

A striking finding throughout the research is the various ways in which Romanian post-socialism deregulates the lives of workers. The vast majorities, being in a state of poverty after the sunset of the mining industry, have had to migrate to do different types of hard work for which they did not have training, or to work in other types of jobs after their time in the mines affected their health (Kideckel, 2010).

These miners go through different professional trajectories and have different work and life narratives, but what is most significant in capturing this process is observing its impact on the worker. What is also important is the contrast between what is happening with mining in Hungary and Romania in the post-socialist period, because the two states have taken different paths, and the need to move a part of the former Romanian mining sector into Hungary raises questions about what makes this move necessary and why Romania's policies could not meet the needs of this industry. All the miners' narratives tell the story of two different ways of attracting and making investments and different ways of state involvement in adjusting the life and work possibilities for industrial workers.

4 THE OLD AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CITY

As a city with an old tradition in coal extraction, Mór was able to keep its mine open until 2012, but at the same time, there were also several foreign factories—with Austrian, German, or Spanish capital—opened here. Those who migrated to work at the mine here had the opportunity to bring their family and they reported that their wives also found jobs.

When describing the city of Mór, respondents talk with admiration about the way a city with a mining industrial profile can be a “cozy” place, full of tourists, with places to visit and leisure alternatives, such as walking in the park, restaurants in the city center, or other attractions. Also, a very important aspect that respondents are talking about is that there has always been a demand for labor in the city. Since the years they started to go there, from the years 1995–1999 to the way they describe the situation of the city now, they stated that there are available jobs in Mór.

What makes it possible to bring the miners' families soon after their move are accessible job opportunities. The miners' partners managed to get hired shortly after moving, at the various factories that exist in the city: “Foreign factories are coming there-the Germans, the Spanish and the French. They make a lot of car parts here, all types of cars are built: motors, parts of the engines, absolutely everything. There were factories before, and in the meantime, they moved out and other factories came. They moved: some closed, others changed profile (economic profile) and they have many factories.” The partners of some of the respondents work at a thread factory, others at the mentioned automobile factories and there are workers who migrate to work in these factories by hearing from those left about the possibility of working there.

Today's image of Băiuţ, according to direct observation and discussions with people who stayed in the village is one that upsets the locals: “Many have gone (migrated) and many have died. The younger ones went away, and the old ones died and the place is abandoned. You can spend—there at the exploitation place—you can spend an hour on the road without seeing any man on it. Especially afternoon, you cannot see any.” Băiuţ remains a village with an elderly population, with the primary and secondary schools programmed to be discontinued in the coming years for lack of children (“Now I think the school is no longer functional, on the first grade there were only two children this year. The classes are held simultaneously, 4th grade with 3rd and 2nd with first grade”), a village that does not offer jobs, a place that gives its people away and does not receive any.

People from Băiuţ complain about how their mayor deals with the affairs of the village, they say he is “corrupt” and that he does not engage in any effort to attract the young people back to Băiuţ, that they do not offer them any job, and the infrastructure of the village is also a problem often pointed at. Those who work either commute to the nearest city, Tirgu Lăpuş, where there is a textile factory, or work with wood: “There is no other job besides Taparo, being taken by car in the morning and then brought back home, and a few of these companies like Taparo. Here in the Băiuţ we have nowhere to work, only with the wood and so on.” If those who remain in Băiuţ say of those who are gone that “they have nothing to return to, there is no doing here,” about themselves they say they are too old to leave, and they declare themselves bound emotionally to Băiuţ.

Post-deindustrialization Băiuţ makes for a portrait of desolation, with demolished buildings that constituted the core of the economic activities of the place and surrounding villages, some being transformed into “housing” for the very poor people of the village. This is also the case of several mono industrial cities in Romania. For all these places, once the prevailing industry in the area was closed down, they remain only with buildings that ironically remind the people a period of economic growth, but at the same time, by their current appearance, also tell the story of radical economic reforms affecting the life of the great mass of industrial workers. This melancholy has roots in the image of socialist Băiuț, characterized by the effervescence of the economic activities and the sea of people whom the village received every day for work and the richness of the village. While in the years 1992–1994 the population of Băiuţ was over 3,000 inhabitants (with 1,000 more than now), there were also laborers from most neighboring localities coming daily to work at the mine: “There were 2000-and-something employees, and there were six buses and about 5 vans with workers (coming daily). You can tell what it looked like back then. They came from the route, from all the villages, from everywhere they came.” The comparison between the Băiuţ of its “glory” period, the socialist period, and the town of Mór in the post-socialist period show how both mining centers are characterized by the effervescence of economic, cultural and social activity, lifting the economic spirits of a large part of the surrounding villages too.

Beyond work-related narratives, the problem of relocation is essential. The metaphor “New Băiuţ and Old Băiuţ” refers to a double move that is carried out at the same time: that of individuals and the movement of the community. When the miners of Maramureş and in particular those of Băiuţ are establishing themselves in the town of Mór they occupy whole neighborhoods, one of them being generically named by the Romanians “Băiuţ.” The substance of this migration is a series of elements that move along with people, such as solidarity, or community. Besides the fact that a new collectivity takes shape in Hungary, something is left behind, and here comes the second element of the metaphor: “the Old Băiuţ.”

In the migration of the miners from Băiuţ, as a professional sector, orchestrated by capital, the analysis of how this move is perceived by them is relevant as it goes beyond the question of “Why did Băiuț have to move to Mór?” It also sees the impact on the workers who are found in the need to reconstruct the solidarity among themselves through different methods. What happens also is that they start internalizing an immigrant identity. The juxtaposition here is not restricted to the New Băiuţ and the Old Băiuț dynamic. It also delivers the possibility of imagining how Băiuț could look now if it had not been moved to Mór, but on the ruins of the post-industrial disaster that is observed in Băiuţ now.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The analysis reveals how, after a period of working at the mine in Băiuţ, in very difficult working conditions and with an inadequate set of protection measures, the miners who are “moved” by capital-through Romanian entrepreneurs-to Hungary, find better working conditions here. Yet, soon they are faced with the need for professional reconversion. What makes these dynamics possible is the different ways in which neoliberal economic ideas were propagated in the two states, with that leading to different regional policies on mining and the issue of how to treat the old working class. If mining in Hungary is reinforced at the same time as it decays in Romania, this goes along with the background of different macroeconomic policies analyzed in the literature on the varieties of capitalism. Bohle and Greskovits show that the diffusion of neoliberal ideas differs in the case of the two states.

The fact that in Hungary a part of the mining sector resists and even grows is linked to the successful transition of Hungary to post-communism, to the regulatory policies and maintaining the negotiation between the market and the state at a point where the result was still social stability. On the opposite side, in Romania, miners, as part of the former working-class fall into a zone of imminent poverty in the light of the lack of social protection under the conditions of the rapid shutting down of mines. The research records the common present in Eastern Europe that plays out so differently for the two states amidst different experiences.

By shedding light on the process of moving a part of the Romanian mining sector to Hungary, this work shows how these miners are moved through the speculative actions of entrepreneurs in Baia Mare, who develop in this logic a new business initiative in Romania at the period. These new entrepreneurs manage to observe the dynamics of the Romanian and Hungarian labor markets and to take the initiative of a labor transfer between the two states. If the representatives of the entrepreneurs' act under the class advantages of having the means of production and hence control over the labor of others, for immigrants the situation is antithetical. They face abuses from the intermediate firms and negative treatments from Hungarian miners, thus embodying the position of being “the other.”

Although in light of the success of moving with their families to the cities of Hungary and buying houses, they develop from this point of view into success stories of the transition, the miners are trapped in constant pursuit of building a sense of community with the other villagers in Mór.

The changes in labor along with the move to Hungary that go with technologization and the need to adjust to the new conditions, but also the imminent professional reprofiling in the case of miners who do not retire, represent only a moment of a work trajectory. On this path, the miners met with strenuous working conditions, health problems, and uncertainty under the mining administration regimes. Although the working conditions in the Hungarian mines had improved for miners, they already have a long path of working in the mine behind them, and many do not get to retire before the planned closing of the mines in Hungary. The reorientation towards newly opened factories in the mining towns of Hungary proves accessible only to Hungarian respondents, by the fact that they are the ones who can get documents and houses. It follows that this route is more accessible to ethnic Hungarians, while the Romanian miners end up migrating to other countries or reorienting.

The former regional labor center, Băiuţ, represents very well the image of former mono industrial areas in Romania. Once more, the New Băiuţ is a place where the quality of life is better for miners and where they manage to settle with their families, while the Old Băiuţ remains a place where their community and former solidarity remain and where “Our joy has been sewn in the ground so that it can no longer come out.” The City of Mór is a place where several foreign-western factories are concentrated and in which the demand for jobs, both in the mine and in the factories, makes people from different parts of the world, both eastern Europe, but also from Asia, to move there.

The Old Băiuţ no longer has the fervor of a work center, the remaining population is aging and there are no jobs here. Thus, the need to create a New Baiut in another country speaks to the heterogeneity from the socio-economic point of view of Eastern Europe. Differences arise from the standpoint of life conditions and how the experiences of these states are dependent on external factors, historical tradition (socialism) and the game of internal actors and elites. The need to move Băiuț into Mór shows how the old labor center of socialism, Băiuț, remains in ruins, while the mining towns of Hungary intensify.

Thus, it is necessary to go back to the question: “What are the structures through which this area manages to attract workers and to make them stay, while mining areas in Romania and Maramureş lose a significant part of their population?” The contention that works here almost as an axiom, which says that “It is not easy to work in the mine” is not an exaggerated lamentation. Following a process of capturing the specifics of this type of work, it may even seem indulgent. To trace the miners' route from the beginning to the current state where many of them work in factories also means seeing why for this category of workers, post-socialism is a painful era, as the miners are ostracized, and mining endures in regions within other states.