A New ”Cult of Labor”:Stress and Crisis Among Romanian Workers

Abstract

This paper compares the responses of two different groups of workers to Romania's economic crisis. In the literature on the East Central European transformation, where workers are discussed at all, they are described in largely homogenous terms. The groups discussed here, the miners of the Jiu Valley and the chemical workers of the Fagaras region, have many surface similarities including a mono-industrial profile, high unemployment, and extensive labor activism. However, research suggests that the specific way by which workers are incorporated into regional labor systems and the particulars of regional production result in highly variable responses to crisis both within and between regions. In the Jiu Valley, mining is the near sole livelihood. As the mine dominates regional mentalities it also shapes polarized relations between miners and superiors, between active and unemployed miners, in household relations, and in miner views of politics and the state. In contrast, in Fagaras sources of labor and income arc diffused.
While the chemical plants were the chief regional employer, Fagaras workers, also have greater access to village occupations and resources and other alternatives, including emigration. This contributes to somewhat calmer labor relations, more stable domestic relationships, but greater interpersonal jealousy. Given the differences in these basic-production systems, the paper goes on to analyze the nature of political and social responses to their economic problems and suggest different possibilities for intervention.