Attempts to organize led to the dismissal of employees who were suspected of having leanings toward the organization and having them evicted from their family homes. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. But is it really hurting? "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Or all you're gonna get's a chunk of Harlan County coal. 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." Dan Pollitt reads a letter from Carl Horn, Jr., president of Duke Power Company, respectfully declining our invitation. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. 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 miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. 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 rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. "We've took about all we can take," he says. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Middleton died on the scene. Mr. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. The UMW had made written proposals for compromising these issues a little. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. 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. 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. Where will the families go? The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. 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. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . Figure 2: Harlan County Coal Mine Employment, 2000-2016, (KYEEC, 2017) In 1942, shortly after Harlan County experienced record high coal mine employment, the county experienced is highest production levels with 15.6 million tons of coal being produced in this year (KYEEC, 2017). They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. 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 . 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. He says that, standing. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. These charities began to give aid to blacklisted miners who were unable to find employment as the soup kitchens had closed once the NMU had closed its doors. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." 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.". Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. 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. 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. They say no action has been taken on this report. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. There is no water in the house. 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. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". 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. Project Summary. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . Capitalizing on the general . Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. 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 Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". The airline magazine contains an article on southern skiing, a feature on hot, winter drinks for the "Piedmont palate," an article on how tough it is to be thirty-three and middle-class today, and a success story about an Atlanta bra, sleepwear, girdle, and pantie company. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. Two hundred people crowd. 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. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. ", 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. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? 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. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. The median family income is $4600 a year. 8 N.L.R.B. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. 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. If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. Killed - 12. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. The women spent the night. Unlike the previous Coal Wars that took place in West Virginia with the Paint-Creek Strike of 1912 and Matewan that lasted for a year or two. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. 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. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. 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. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. Interview Summary. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. 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. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. 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. 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. . ~~ David Sergent. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. And I can't get you off of that couch. We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. 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. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. 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. We are joined by Bernie Aaronson, the young public relations director of the UMW, and John Ed Pierce, a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. 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. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Copy as parenthetical citation. 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. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. Blair made it clear that he was on the side of the mine operators and the people of the county lost any illusion that the law enforcement would be impartial in this strike. Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. 1938) Copy Citation . My man was mashed up in the mines. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. What did the foremen say on those occasions? 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 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.
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