This action did not go unnoticed by the labor unions and the United Mine Workers union decided to attempt to organize the already-impoverished labor force of the area. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. Dateline New York City, November 13, 1931: Dreiser again denies the charge and adds, "Even if it were true, I wouldn't give a damn. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . Harlan County. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. By 1908 the union had . No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. Available for both RF and RM licensing. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. Cite. The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . We never would find out what happened. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . My brother died at the age of forty. Exist Dates. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. After breakfast, we travel fifteen miles east to Evarts. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. Though the union had made substantial inroads into the Central Appalachian coalfields by 1930, when miners in Bell and Harlan Counties went out on strike in early May, 1931, the UMWA removed its support. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. KCA's constitution and by-laws were adopted on April 28, 1947, "to promote the best interest of the coal mining industry in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all those engaged therein". After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. 1931, only $13.5 million. Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. No. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' It is too early for dolor. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. . Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. Bill McQueen says that the shuttle car into the mine usually has no brakes, and that it can only be stopped by putting it in reverse. The issues had been narrowed down to Eastover's demand for a "no-strike clause" and a limit on the power of the safety committee. Filmed during the coal strike of 1974-1975, this documentary does much to capture the tension brought on by the injustice of the coal operators to the coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. During the day, a man came and said that if their children weren't out of the jail by night, the welfare people would take them. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. I say that the issue is whether or not the men will be allowed to have their own union to protect their safety and secure and maintain decent wages and benefits, that if enough pressure is put on Duke Power Company, maybe something will give. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. "My daddy's a retired coal miner, and he's got the black lung. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. Steeped in Appalachian culture and surrounded by the influence of coal, Harlan County has amassed an interesting reputation and national attention with rest of the world. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. The magazine presents a different picture of the people and conditions in the Piedmont region than the one I am to see in Harlan County, Kentucky. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . McDonald's. She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. But, I say, even without further investigation of each of the complaints, it is possible to conclude that fear is an everyday part of the miners' lives. But is it really hurting? During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. I've got five living children and four dead. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Free shipping for many products! Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. What a marvelous view! Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. My man was mashed up in the mines. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association's (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. The women say they then organized a "sunrise worship service" to begin at 4:30 on the morning of October 23, on the railroad tracks across the highway from the picket line. Garbage along the roadside. (Eastover, to repeat, now pays portal-to-portal wages for inside workers in its other mines and has raised the wages of nonstrikers to the UMW level.) But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. I look at the government statistics once more. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. James Willard Pope officiating. Expand. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. During the Great Depression of the 1930s coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck against the coal operators for better pay and better working conditio. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! ", What about federal inspection? They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. More than twenty-four babies out of a thousand die before they are one year old, and the expenditure per child in the public schools is one-half the national average. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. It was Miller who defeated W. A. But relatives did come and take the children. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. On one excuse or another, such as not having personnel readily available to accompany the inspector into the mine, the company can delay the inspection. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? They relate federal mine-safety figures which show that in 1971 the accident rate in the Brookside mine was three times the national average, and in 1972 was twice the national average. I have attended the University of Kentucky. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. Bill Doan says that the roof bolts often didn't have enough torque on them, sometimes causing roof falls as high as thirty-five feet above the regular ceiling, and that once he complained about this to the visiting inspector in the presence of his foreman. Documents the 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike against the operators of the Brookside mine and the Duke Power Company, which resulted from the company's refusal to honor the . Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. (This . "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. They're trapped. ", Bill Doan says that he was hurt in a rockfall at 7:15 one morning and that he didn't get out of the mine until nine o'clock. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. . On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Its initial land holdings were in the Irwin gas coal basin in Westmoreland County, but as these were exhausted the company purchased 14,000 acres of undeveloped coal land along the border of Boone and Logan Counties in West Virginia in 1923-28. . The money was . Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. When this strike was broken in1924, none of the non-union mines in Harlan County, all of which were members ofthe Harlan County Coal Operators Association, would employ a man from BlackMountain."Many of the men who worked at Black Mountain transferred to LocalUnion No. The Harlan County Coal Operators Association, still functioning today, spent nearly a half million dollars from 1927 to 1938 to combat unionism, most of it going to pay strongarm men to terrorize . As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. ", What about the Southern Labor Union? Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." There is a suit still in litigation. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. He says that, standing. National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." 25 (N.L.R.B. There is no water in the house. [citation needed] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. Barbara says that she was reacting spontaneously to the spirit and determination exhibited by the women, that their testimony was the highlight of our hearings. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? October 31, 2016. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. Si Kahn says that Eastover tried for a time to operate the mine with "scabs," but that the mine was shut down when the coal miners' wives and other women joined the men on the picket line. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. And, even so, it usually takes forty-five minutes to an hour for the inspector to get from mine entrance to the face of the coal. Si sticks a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek and begins to fill us in on the background of the Brookside strike. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. The women spent the night. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. Capitalizing on the general . . Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. Lois Scott says that the women organized the Brookside Women's Club and got involved in the strike "because we knew that if the women didn't come in there would be violence." There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. Get a Demo. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Isolated trailer houses. But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says. It seems to me that for a great many people in Harlan County-for poor people and a lot of coal miners the whole county is a jail.