Pedro Montes

Pedro Montes Gonzales (born 14 April 1960) is a Bolivian mineworker, politician, and trade unionist who served as senator for Oruro from 2015 to 2020. A member of the Movement for Socialism, he previously served as executive secretary of the Bolivian Workers' Center from 2006 to 2012.

Born in Catavi, Montes spent most of his life as a mineworker at complexes in Oruro and Potosí. Having got his start in the sector's organized labor movement in the mid-1980s, he progressively climbed the ranks of the country's largest workers' syndicates, holding membership within the Syndical Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers and serving as executive secretary of the Oruro Departmental Workers' Center. In 2006, he was elected chairman of the Bolivian Workers' Center, the country's national trade union center.

As head of one of the most powerful syndicates in the country, Montes collaborated closely with the socialist administration of President Evo Morales, whose government took a more cooperative approach towards organized labor. Although this alliance bore fruit in the form of concessions towards workers, Montes also drew criticism for being too appeasing towards the government, and he is cited as having significantly contributed to his organization's gradual co-option into Morales's party, the Movement for Socialism. In 2014, he was elected as a senator for the party.

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