I have also attended the University of Pikeville. It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. One night, they saw a secretary for the Dreiser group enter Dreiser's hotel room, and they placed toothpicks against the door to determine whether she ever came back out during the night. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. 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%. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. 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. The Citizens Inquiry meets in the attractive, river-rock Evarts Community Center, directly across the Clear Fork from the site of the 1931 "Battle of Evarts." 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. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? (That is a tough point.) Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . The warrant was never served. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." 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. 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. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. Done Citation. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. Expand. It doesn't seem like enough. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. But what of the people of Harlan County? He can't never walk again." Strikebreakers were often beaten. However, the battle continues to this day. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. Done. The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . Two hundred people crowd. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. 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. 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 men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. We're all involved. He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. "We've took about all we can take," he says. Interview Summary. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. 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. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. 25 (N.L.R.B. However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. The company will probably demand a new election. 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. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. No help came to those that were in starving situations due to no money to spend on food and no admittance to the company store unless they were gainfully employed by the coal mine. 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. Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. By 1908 the union had . They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. 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. It was Miller who defeated W. A. She's been picketing with the other women. The transcript will be published as a book. 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". The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. 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. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. We are handed copies of court records concerning a certain Claude Beach, who has been hired by Eastover during the strike as a "security guard." Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. The unemployment rate in the county is 7 percent; that doesn't count those who have long since given up looking for the scarce or nonexistent jobs. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. As discussed in a previous video. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". Done. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. . Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Why is garbage left on the roadway? Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. 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. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. On top of that, we learn later, the union is spending $108,000 a year for medical and hospital coverage for the striking miners and their families. "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. One of the better houses is already being demolished. 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. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. [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%. We huddle before breaking up. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. [6] Nearly four thousand miners working and living in Harlan County, Kentucky lost their jobs in the Great Depression. Listen to "Harlan County Coal" from Pistol Annies' album, 'Hell of a Holiday,' out now: https://pa.lnk.to/HOAHAY Chorus:Making decorations out of shotgun she. They say no action has been taken on this report. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . But you must remember I am an immoral man. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. It seems that unfriendly local law enforcement officials kept a constant surveillance on Dreiser, hoping to catch him in something that would justify a criminal charge against him. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. 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. There are very few vacant houses in the county. Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . ", What about the Southern Labor Union? Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. Almost immediately after the explosion became known rescue teams, under the direction of J. F. Bryson, safety director of the Harlan County Coal Operators association, started into the entry. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. Yarborough tells us that the company does not now object to paying the miners for portal-to-portal time for inside mine work, but that the union wants comparability for outside workers too, in effect requiring the company to pay outside workers overtime for all work in excess of a seven and-a-quarter-hour regular day. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators 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. . 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. 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. The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. When the smoke had cleared, the bodies of three guards and one miner were found, and an undetermined number of other dead and dying had been carried away into the mountains. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. Get a Demo. 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. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Isolated trailer houses. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . 5355, atEvarts . Rev. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Copy with citation. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? In June of 1973, workers at the Brookside coal mine in Harlan County, Kentucky voted 113-55 to replace their membership in the Southern Labor Union (SLU) and join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. 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. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Harlan County sits in the sweet spot of coal mining in southeastern Kentucky. Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. by Ron Soodalter. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. In June of 1973, in a National Labor Relations Board election, the miners at Brookside voted 113 to 55 to affiliate with the United Mine Workers. 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. And we're burning up people to make electricity. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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. Where will the families go? The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. 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. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. When drafting these articles, I found that many things have not been taught to the future generations about the struggles for coal miner rights have been in the Appalachian Mountains. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Jacqueline Brophy is the daughter of Pat Brophy, who went into the mines when he was twelve, and who, in 1926, ran against John L. Lewis and lost. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. They're trapped. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. And I can't get you off of that couch. Blair. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. Big Boy. or smaller. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. "We took the sticks with us," she says. Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." 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. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. Free shipping for many products! Biographical History . We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" 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. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. But Barbara Bode has arranged for eleven of them to come up onto the stage at the same time, and they seem to take strength from their numbers. Following this episode, the women say, Norman Yarborough asked Judge Hogg to hold the UMW and a number of miners and women in contempt of the Judge's order limiting the number of picketers to six. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." 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. . We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. By comparison to Harlan, the Pittston strike in 1989-1990 shut down almost 70% of that company's production (and completely halted production during the Moss 3 refining plant occupation) and won back the health care benefits of around 1500 miners and their families, as well as the Coal Act of 1992 that requires all coal operators in the U . Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Each of us makes a statement. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. 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. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. 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. For a time after the hearing, he says, it appeared that Duke had softened. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. Each contract varied from mine to mine. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this.
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