No, Yarborough says; it just serves as a central clearing house, so that job applicants won't have to go around and apply at each of the mines separately. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. 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. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. All too many Americans are under the naive belief that, while unions may have been necessary in the 30's, they are no longer needed in the United States today. 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. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush Early accounts of the Harlan County mine wars place the inability of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to establish a permanent foothold in the county, first at the feet of of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. 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. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. But you must remember I am an immoral man. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Exist Dates. 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. The AFSC fed almost 1500 children in Harlan by the end of the 1931-2 schoolyear, as well as about a hundred nursing and expectant mothers. In 1970, Joseph Yablonski had led a rank-and-file revolt against Boyle, and Yablonski and his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by killers hired with union funds. Make your practice more effective and efficient with Casetext's legal research suite. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. or smaller. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Drift mines back into the mountains follow the seam of coal wherever it goes." The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. Overturned car bodies everywhere. They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. (This . It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . However, the battle continues to this day. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. A third generation coal operator, he served as President of the Harlan County Coal Operators and the Harlan Mining Institute, as Vice President of the Kentucky Coal Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Kentucky. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." 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. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" Along the way, we pass through the community of Brookside, its mine-camp houses dominated by the brooding tin presence of the Eastover mine building on the hill. "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. The transcript will be published as a book. But is it really hurting? These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. The Federal Government, with the Commissioner of Labor in a fact finding role, acted as a 'neutral' for the first time in contributing to settlement of the bitter coal strike. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. There are very few vacant houses in the county. The letter states that Eastover has now raised the wages in their other mines to the UMW scale and is paying the miners for time spent with the mine moving to and from the face of the coal. the meeting room. This law was enacted to try to reverse the hardships to those who were out of a job because of the economic collapse of the Great Depression. 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. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. 4 . "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . 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. What did the foremen say on those occasions? In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. Where will the families go? He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. 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. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. Interviews with residents of Hazard who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners faced from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes that are being organized in Hazard County. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. No. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. 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. Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. My man was mashed up in the mines. They say no action has been taken on this report. Yarborough replies. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. 9:03 PM. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. 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 . However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. 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. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Two hundred people crowd. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. We come into Harlan County at dusk. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. Done. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. . "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. On Friday, March 25, a continuous mining machine operator was killed by a wall collapse at the Huff Creek No. On the plane with me, it turns out, is another member of the Citizens Inquiry, Jacqueline Brophy, who is the director of the Labor-Liberal Arts Program of Cornell University's School of Industrial Labor Relations in New York. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. Yarborough's affidavit stated that "the group swarmed out into the roads, stopped cars, and forced company employees into coercive conversations and indulged in generally raucous name-calling and abuse." Killed - 12. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Evarts welcomed the miners because it was filled with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores and company men in political positions vanish. They're trapped. The Harlan Daily Enterprise story of September 16, 1943 is serious and straightforward: 17 miners are trapped a mile underground and help is on the way.. Much of the story is about help. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. Garbage along the roadside. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. I look at the government statistics once more. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? The women furnish the panel with a copy of a report from the Harlan County Health Department, dated October 12, 1973, which states that the drinking water in the Eastover mining camp, where approximately thirty of the striking Brookside families live, is "highly contaminated" with fecal bacteria. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. 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 . There is no water in the house. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . Mr. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. Word precedes him. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. 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. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. The Act also made a provision for a National Labor-Relations Board to designate a legal structure for the workers to conduct fair and legal elections of their officers and representatives. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. I remind her of what Bill Doan has said: "You work with one eye on the roof, one eye on your job, and your mind's outside.". As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. 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. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called upon and arrived for the first time in the county to try to stem the violence. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. . Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. Each contract varied from mine to mine. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." And I can't get you off of that couch. 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. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. The median family income is $4600 a year. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. 2012: $1,552,717. Documentary of mining practices in Hazard County, Kentucky. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. . Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. 3.' The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. The Price of Coal, Part II. The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. They are neatly and attractively dressed. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." 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. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. ", What about federal inspection? He then answers a question he wasn't asked. They lobby in Frankfort and Washington and sponsor an annual "Coal Miners Day" to try to get more high school students interested in mining engineering. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. 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. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." The women spent the night. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. When filmmaker Barbara Kopple traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, the resulting Academy award-winning documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) captured a historic story.
+43 650 4114540