Pedro Montes

Pedro Montes
Official portrait, 2018
Senator for Oruro
In office 18 January 2015 – 3 November 2020
Substitute	Lourdes Molina
Preceded by	Roxana Camargo [es]
Succeeded by	Rubén Gutiérrez
Executive Secretary of the Bolivian Workers' Center
In office 29 June 2006 – 23 January 2012
Preceded by	Jaime Solares
Succeeded by	Juan Carlos Trujillo
Personal details
Born	Pedro Montes Gonzales (1960-04-14) 14 April 1960 (age 64) Catavi, Potosí, Bolivia
Political party	Movement for Socialism
Other political affiliations	Revolutionary Workers'
Occupation	Mineworker politician trade unionist

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.