INDUSTRIALIZATION

AND

DEINDUSTRIALIZATION:

TOBACCO FACTORY

A CORUÑA

Work done by:

CARMEN CUESTA DELGADO, MANUELA JARES HERVELLA, CARMEN FERNANDEZ CEBRAL, CARMEN FELPETO BRAÑA, Mª JESÚS GUTIERREZ PITA,

AGUSTÍN GARCÍA CABEZUDO, JUAN J. GARCÍA MOSQUERA, FRANCISCO MORALESS REY, GLORIA PEREIRA FERREIRO, JOSÉ SOUTO REY.

SENIOR UNIVERSITY A CORUÑA

EUROPEAN WORKSHOP “MORE THAN NEIGHBOURS”

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“For years and events passed and even men, and it

began to be understood that something more noble and

transcendental than build an idea and a class had to be

tried in Galicia, that we had to form a Nation”

Eduardo Pondal

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INTRODUCTION:

- Industrialization – Deindustrialization. - Tobacco Factory: “La Palloza”, Galician industry

pioneer in A Coruña. - Phases: • Beginning – 1804. • Growth, expansion and first mechanization (S.

XIX). • Modernization:

The “farias” (1st decade XX century). Electrification. New machines.

• “La Palloza”, described by Mrs. Pardo Bazán. • Social impact of “La Palloza” in A Coruña. • The decline of the Tobacco Factory.

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INDUSTRIALIZATION - DEINDUSTRIALIZATION

The Industrial Revolution marked a decisive break in the history of mankind.

The bourgeoisie grows and is enriched at the expense of the exploitation of an emerging industrial proletariat.

From the XVIII century wealth is growing in industrialized countries, not only for its internal development but also at the expense of developing countries in the periphery of the capitalist system.

The industrial revolution not only was reduced to a transformation due to technically brilliant inventions but because the changes in the economy and the society were irreversible.

The deindustrialization is a process of market economy characterized by a fall in industrial employment for the services sector increased by the removal or relocation of large factories, for the integration into the globalization process.

We are located in Galicia in the nineteenth century.

“Divorced thus capital and popular work without the help of the intelligence, only competed to the middle class to give direction to the country’s industry, as having the basic knowledge… Despised the arts and the industry by the intelligent middle class of this country, it was not possible to ever come out of the prostration in which it was. Foreigners or natives of other provinces directed the few factories that represented the country´s industry.”

So declared Antonio Valenzuela Ozores.

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THE TOBACCO FACTORY: “LA PALLOZA”, GALICIAN INDUSTRY PIONEER IN A CORUÑA

THE BEGINNING -1804:

Although its activity began in 1804, it was February 17th, 1808, by Royal Order when it happens to occupy the building used as General Store of Feed Supplies, and proceeds to its official establishment with 120 employees.

The location of this factory does not exactly coincide with the building of “La Palloza” but it was within the walls.

It had a deck for loading and unloading goods arriving by railway or by sea.

In subsequent years the number of workers was growing -466 women- who did the work in a completely manual way. They represented more than 6% of the women living in the city of A Coruña in a time when it was uncommon for women to be integrated in the working world.

The revenues accruing to the Royal Treasury from taxes explains the growth experienced by the tobacco factories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

In “La Palloza” factory and due to the need to increase the production of cigarettes, there was an increase in the number of workers.

The upward trend of increasing female staff will continue until 1860 when 4000 will be working women.

Since the beginning and in different periods, there will be problems and social upheavals.

This is reflected in the book “History of the city of La Coruña” written by the Professor José Ramón Barreiro: “The 4000 women workers attacked the officers and employees, destroying the tobacco leaves chopped to pieces, the new cutting machines… throwing them into the sea” (Newspaper “El País”, Pontevedra 13/12/1857).

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GROWTH, EXPANSION AND FIRST MECHANISATION

XXTH CENTURY

In the initial period of operation of the “Palloza” Factory, responsibility was entrusted to an Administrator who, in turn, depended on the Subdelegate of Revenue.

The basic unit of production was “the farm” consisting of a variable number of workers, including apprentices. These operatives previously had to buy essential tools for the job. In front of each group was a woman who controlled the labour and production discipline, gave the tobacco leaves to the workers and picked up the work done.

The control and surveillance, both inside and outside, was for the porters, who carried out the registration of workers.

The working day was beginning at 7,00 a.m. and for dinner they had approximately 2 hours available.

The income of workers, very poor, depended on the number of cigars made.

The public image conveyed by the workers was that of a woman of strong character that was at odds with the submission required to them to labor discipline.

(Image of fillings carried out in the 1920s to win ground to the sea. Before, the sea beat directly on the walls of the factory).

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The first phase of industrialization (1887 – 1935) was produced when The Treasury Management leaved the factory to a private monopoly, the Lessee Tobacco Company: CAT.

The CAT made a great effort to improve facilities and machine processes. The terrible fire of 1896 accelerated the process of remodeling.

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MODERNIZATION:

The “farias”

The electrification

New machinery

The second phase, the most important of “La Palloza,” had as a primary objective to develop a special type of cigar: the “farias”.

The “farias” was done with bite instead of stuffing leaves.

This innovation is due to a Mexican of Galician origin, Heraclio Farias. They revolutionized the market since it was a cigar of excellent combustion and low cost.

In the third phase of modernization of “La Palloza”, steam machines were replaced by newly opened electrical ones.

The tobacco industrial leaf was treated by further mechanization. And in a new warehouse building will be kept the branch of tobacco.

The new machines were installed to make the new cigars and put them into packages.

Mechanization will result in a reduction of the workforce, especially women. However, the impact of “The Palloza” in A Coruña was still very large and may be said that 3% of de local population worked in the

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Tobacco Factory. And it was not only locally but it was one of the most productive in Spain.

These cigars achieved great prestige and national demand due to its fine quality.

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“THE PALLOZA” DESCRIBED BY EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many cities with certain industries forged a unique social environment. In A Coruña, the Tobacco Factory was from the beginning part of this style.

The staff of the Tobacco Factory was very familiar because it employed grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters. In “The Tribune”, Mrs Emilia puts into thinking that its protagonist, Amparo, will take possession of the “father land”.

In the novel, the naturalist writer describes the neighbourhood and the factory as the areas where the protagonist moves. The examples that are happening throughout the narrative respond to a mode of sociability working of spontaneous and informal nature.

Indeed, the seventies of the nineteenth century are the starting point or the labour movement in A Coruña. But to speak of a more formal sociability we have to wait for the formation of associations of organizations with a set of principles and rules established.

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(In the last plant were manufactured the Farias. Needed sunlight from skylights).

(In the part of the more primitive factory, looking to the Spring Street, still survives tilth on stone a coat of arms of the Navy that recalls the origin of the building, the maritime mail. It had a Crown, but the sashes, of strong Republican tradition, were destroyed).

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(The clock that came from Strasbourg was the latest technology of his time. There was no one equal in all Spain).

(Clockwise from the factory of A Palloza, stopped since the closure, synchronizes now with Big Ben)

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SOCIAL IMPACT OF “LA PALLOZA” IN A CORUÑA

There are several reasons that lead to think of the Tobacco Factory as the referent of the city. In fact, this factory was for many years the largest manufacturing plant in Galicia, coming to have in mid-nineteenth century more than 4000 workers in a population of 30.000. This implies a direct impact on the social and economic life of the city, which continued until the second half of the twentieth century, a period in which, for reasons of political nature, the Company is privatized, leading to a series of personnel restructuring which, for strategic reasons on the side of the new owners, finished with the closing of the Factory in 2002.

To understand the significance that the Tobacco Factory had for the women working there and for the society of A Coruña, one must take into account that well into the twentieth century their working day was from 7 in the morning until 12 at night. The great part of their lives passed inside the Factory, which came to be called “our house” and, therefore, that the Company was regarded as a defining element in their lives, and that favoured the coming of offspring of women workers, successive generations of families. You can interpret that there was a communion between the Factory and their workers, being derived from this fact a situation of great interest to business since learning of the operatives and substitution of existing ones was carried out in an orderly manner and according to the needs of the production of the Factory.

An aspect of the social image of the Tobacco Factory female workers is reflected with special realism in an evocation referred to the collective of female workers coming from the rural, written by Juan Luis Teijeiro Rois: “I have a clear remembrance (referred to the years 1935/40) of rows of women coming, at sunset, dressed with large skirts, black shawls, sabots and big hand-baskets on top of their heads. Many of them carried an oil lamp in the hand, they were the workers from the rural coming back to their homes”. A scene repeated every day and one year after the other, and so for many decades of years.

In spite of the conditions of precariousness of their work, they also had their free time for celebrations and feasts, and they were well known in town, apart fromsharing the traditional Christmas and Carnival celebrations they had those of the Factory. Among them were important the religious celebrations. That came from each of the workshops devotion of the old Factory: Virgin of the consolation (Patron), Asylum, of the Rosary, the Anguish…, bul also Saint Joseph and Saint Anthony. Many people from Coruña can still remember the feast celebrated in the Sanctuary of the

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Anguish (in Betanzos). They still prepared a special train to carry the workers, as well as friends and family.

(Manufacturing plant of Farias in the main building of A Palloza).

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TWILIGHT OF THE TOBACCO FACTORY

Early in the seventies of the XXth century, a new reform took place in “La Palloza”. They tackled a remodeling of the management – making it more decentralized and computerized- and the commercialization –selling the snuff in vending machines and public facilities.

In 1985 a total automation was carried out due to new market requirements, preferential demand of soft blond cigarettes and also the incorporation of women into the consumption of snuff.

Due to the incorporation of Spain to the European Market –year 1986- the liquidation of the tobacco monopoly and the rise of the very low taxes were forced.

So the cigarette manufacturing could not resist the competence, due to the rising of taxes. “La Palloza” was losing market quotes, which involved the enterprise in an important crisis.

The main consequences were the anticipated retirement and the adoption of drastic measures in the adjustment of staff.

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“The Palloza” was not only affected by the demonopolization. In 1998, the State, who possessed the majority of shares -52,36%- authorized the selling of them to the private sector, being so definitely transferred.

The new “Tabacalera” was merged with the French SEITA and thus created a new society, the multinational ALTADIS.

In the year 2000 ALTADIS started a process of reorganization of the industrial premises and signed an agreement that implied the closing of eight factories in Spain. One of them was “La Palloza”.

ALTADIS, after signing an agreement with the Trade Unions, dismissed in the year 2001 the last 220 workers.

The 21st December of the year 2002, Mr. Pablo Isla closed definitely “The Palloza” Tobacco Factory.

The sentence ordering the closing was signed two years before under the promises of relocation of the workers affected by the closing.

It finished with a forced expropriation.

By means of an extrajudicial settlement was permitted the development and sale of the well situated plot to the French multinational. In return, La Coruña City Council would build 180 flats of reduced price.

(Recent image of the Tobacco Factory, with the lock deteriorating with the passing of time).

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BIBLIOGRAFÍA:

∗ As tecedeiras do fume – Author : Luís Alonso Álvarez. ∗ Grandes Empresas grandes Historias de La Coruña. Tabacalera

Pionera de la industria gallega – Author: Luís Alonso Álvarez. ∗ A Fábrica de Tabacos da Coruña. Unha perspectiva dende a Historia

Empresarial – Author: Luís Alonso Álvarez. ∗ XII Xornadas de Historia de Galicia Perspectivas plurais sobre a

Historia de Galicia – Authors: Herminia Pena; X. Antón López; Javier Alfaya; Mercedes Duray; Camilo Fernández; Baudilio Barreiro.

∗ La industrialización y el imperialismo (1789 -1914) – Authors:

Joseph Fontana; Joaquín Nadal; Guillermo Carnero; Joan Senent; Jordi Maluquer; Sergio Beser; José Milicua.

∗ Voz de Galicia – Articles and photos. ∗ La Opinión – Photos. ∗ La industria gallega en la década de los noventa - Authors: Xosé

Carlos Álvarez Villamarín; Fidel Castro Rodríguez; X. Manuel González Martínez; Daniel Miles Tonya; Consuelo Pazo Martínez.

∗ A Xunta do Reino de Galicia no final do Antigo Réxime (1775 –

1834) – Author: Manuel María de Artaza. ∗ Presente y Futuro de La Coruña II – Instituto José Cornide

Coruñeses studies. ∗ Historia de la Ciudad de La Coruña – Author: José Ramón Barreiro

Fernández. ∗ Medio Siglo de vida Coruñesa – Author: Jorge García Barros.

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∗ Cien años de Luz Eléctrica en Galicia – Author: Ramón García Fontenla.

∗ Artículos del Diario de Madrid (1794- 1800) – Author: Manuel Pardo de Andrade.

∗ Historia de Galicia – Author: Ramón Villares. ∗ La Tribuna – Author: Emilia Pardo Bazán

∗ Biblioteca Municipal de Estudios Locales – Press dossier. ∗ A Fábrica de Tabacos da Palloza “Producción e vida laboral na

decana das fábricas coruñesa”- Author: Ana Romero Masiá. ∗ Cigarreras Campesinas – Author: Juan Luís Teijeiro Rois.

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