For Mario Sangüezo, working in the middle of the harsh Puna was not hostile. He attended all of his primary school at a school 80 kilometers from San Antonio de los Cobres. For high school, an aunt sheltered him in the city and he graduated as a mechanical assistant in Technique 3. Then his mother, the coplera Cirila, followed him, since his other three brothers also had to continue their studies.
Once received, his inhospitable origins and his specialty were the curriculum to return to his town and work. “What worked in my favor was that I was from the area, I got used to it quickly,” he recalled. His first job was as a truck driver for Marcilese, although he quickly began working in mining. “21 years ago,” he backed away.
Its first mine was Tincalayu, near the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Catamarca, which extracted tincal. “Mining is not what it was before,” he stressed. At that time the minerals that were extracted were few, from what he assured, that changed dragged by the promise of lithium. “Before, mining was only for borate and there was not the profitability that lithium has. This means that the rest of the minerals, having roads and infrastructure, continue to develop and also have profitability,” he said.
The accessibility of the roads, he indicated, is also beneficial for the members of the most remote communities such as Santa Rosa de los Pastos Grandes, Pocitos and Olacapato, because it allows them to “plan.” While “before it was a matter of making a special trip to look for merchandise. Today, mining companies help a lot by paving the roads. Before you had to go out in a 4×4 or special vehicles,” he recalled.
Other changes that he mentioned as part of the new mining are more rights for workers, with shorter days and more protocolized periods. “Before, there were periods of 30 days of work for 7 days of rest or up to 45 days of work for 10 days of rest. Today it is almost standardized, 1 day worked for one day of rest,” he said.
The medical, hygiene and safety, laundry, cleaning and catering services that “were from another world” are other services that Sangüezo named and that lead to “other people working in mining today.”
Job opportunities, he assured, are another of the benefits of the new mining. Although Sangüezo warned that it is something that must be “continued working” so that mining companies hire local labor. Very active and committed to all of his work, he and other colleagues set up a job board during the pandemic. “We were at 500 unemployed and it will have dropped by 50%,” he assured. To encourage the hiring of local labor, in 2022, together with the Human Resources areas of the mining company where he works, they arrived in Puna to have an exchange with the residents. “So they can see what human resources they have available and what they need,” he said. “There are many people who take advantage and say that they live here and do not live here, because the people who enter the mining company go from Salta by bus directly to the mining companies,” he accused and assured that at the same time some companies “justify that they need qualified labor, but today the offices are all in Salta,” he added. The miner asked that companies break with centrality: “Many people send printed resumes or work in the field and have no signal and have to travel to Salta for interviews,” he questioned.
But Sangüezo not only fights for labor issues, but he is also a great disseminator of Andean culture among workers in other provinces. “I always highlight the influence of other cultures, here it is very difficult for us to maintain them because the demand for people is great. , and there are people who come from other places, but they are not used to us,” he reflected. In addition to spreading the celebration of Pachamama, together with his companions Esteban Córdoba and Ariel Castillo they began the first pilgrimages to the Lord and the Virgin of the Miracle. “At first there were 10 of us from the Patito mine,” he said. Then they joined Monsignor Dante Bernacki with whom they walked 400 kilometers from the Salar del Hombre Muerto.
But he is not only a disseminator of culture, but also of the integration of mine workers in general. The mining Olympics, which are increasingly popular and will be held this weekend in San Antonio de los Cobres, were also organized from the beginning by the miner and his colleagues.
