Reșița Works

They have played a crucial role in the industrial development both of the region and of Romania as a whole, and their evolution has been largely synonymous with that of their host city.

The Habsburg monarchy, which then ruled the Banat, was interested in developing extractive metallurgy in the province, and began building furnaces for iron ore smelting in Reșița in 1769, those at Bocșa proving inadequate for its industrial needs.

[1] The works trace their origins to July 3, 1771, when the first furnaces and forges were inaugurated, making it the oldest industrial factory in present-day Romania.

At first, metalworking was the focus of activity, but machinery manufacturing gradually gained prominence, becoming the main occupation in the last quarter of the 19th century.

[2] In 1855, with the empire facing financial crisis and looking to sell,[3] the works were bought by an international consortium, the Imperial Royal Privileged Austrian State Railway Company (K.u.K Oberprivillegierte Staatseisenbahn Gesellschaft or St.E.G.).

An important element of their success was due to their relative self-sufficiency; over time, the works tended to use raw materials and energy sources produced on-site.

A "workshops directorate" belonging to the company was built on the left bank of the Bârzava River; this included the machine works, the old industrial platform of today's UCM Reșița, where the first St.E.G.

By surface area, over 90% of the company properties were forests, but they also included iron, coal and copper mines; vineyards; roads; and limestone quarries.

Among the main products generated were steam locomotives, including repairs; mounted wheels, including axles; wheel bandages, metal bridges, railroad switches and other rail equipment; metal frames for buildings and factories; moveable bridges; electric machinery and equipment such as motors, generators and transformers; petroleum extraction equipment, including pumpjacks, couplings, heavy drill bits, pump units, rotary engine parts, crown blocks and gear reducers; and armaments, such as artillery, gun carriages, 75 mm Vickers antitank and antiaircraft guns; coastal artillery; naval mines; and Brandt 60 and 120 mm LR Gun-mortars.

Together with other incursions into Romanian industry, this move seriously undermined the attempts of King Carol II to maintain an independent foreign policy.

[9][10] CSR's takeover by an American company accused of failing to fulfill its promise of improving the plant led to labor unrest.

This was exploited by the extremist Greater Romania Party, which took control of regular demonstrations where slogans against joining the European Union and NATO became increasingly commonplace; finally, in June 2001, the government announced it would go to court to scrap the contract because of the nationwide "economic and social destabilization" risked by allowing the situation to continue.