RESTRUCTURING OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES - TECHNOLOGY, LABOR, AND CORPORATE-STRATEGY AND CONTROL IN THE ARIZONA COPPER-INDUSTRY

Industrial restructuring in the primary sector highlights the continue d exploitation of economies of scale, vertical integration, and oligop olistic competition. A few large vertically integrated firms wield pow er and control over material sources and production facilities. Restru cturing of the copper industry in Arizona illustrates the interaction of changing corporate strategies and shifting market structures in pri mary production. A weakening of the global copper oligopoly disrupted supply/demand adjustment mechanisms following a wave of nationalizatio ns of copper producing properties in South America and Africa in the e arly 1970s. The resultant depression in prices forced firms in Arizona to restructure. Changes in technological processes and labor relation s eliminated large numbers of jobs, redefined work processes, crushed union vigor, revitalized labor productivity, and substantially lessene d production costs. Firms that survived the reorganization held specia lized core skills in copper that compelled and enabled them to restore capital accumulation. They consolidated assets and intensified vertic al integration. A long-term strategic objective of international minin g companies, including Arizona's copper firms, is to restore the struc ture of the global copper oligopoly through new investments in Chile a nd Peru. Realizing this goal is possible due to the reassertion of cap italistic production principles throughout Latin America and the reinv igoration of international mining firms.