There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. Harlan County to unionize miners. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. 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. 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. The Brookside Women's Club of Harlan County - New York Women in Film HARLAN COUNTY: Women - The Cinessential Grace Elizabeth Hale. 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. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. Did she find the stick on the ground? "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. "Faith, power, and conflict: Miner preachers and the United Mine Worker He says that, standing. 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. Grover Jennings says that six months ago he applied for a job at the Mary Helen mine and was apparently accepted, but that when he went back for his physical, Clyde Goitis, an official at the mine, said, "Buddy, there just ain't no way I can do anything for you. The Benham Coal Company records (151 cubic feet, 302 Boxes; dated 1911-1973) focus primarily on the early years of Benham Coal through the 1940s. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. Westmoreland Coal Company - Social Networks and Archival Context - SNAC The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. . Harlan County, KY, coal miners win affiliation with UMWA union, United How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? 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. Harlan County, Kentucky in a Post-Coal America: A Case Study The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . 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. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. Genders. 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 . They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. 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. 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. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. 2012: $1,552,717. 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." Harlan County: Working in the Coal Mines - kygs.org Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" 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. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". By 1908 the union had . Harlan | Kentucky, United States | Britannica Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. Yarborough replies. Movie Review: Harlan County, USA (1976) - organizing.work Project Summary. 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. ~~ David Sergent. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. 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. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. 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). These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. . Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? Under this Act, the right to organize in ones workplace was granted as well as it outlawed any discrimination whether employed or seeking employment based on union membership. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . It doesn't seem like enough. 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. Word precedes him. He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. (That is a tough point.) Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A . "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. 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. 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. 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. Done Citation. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Which Side are You On? : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' 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. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. (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 County War History, Impact, The Free Encyclopedia "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." 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. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. 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. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. Done. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. Cite. But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. Faith Primitive Baptist Church. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. 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." The kind of house she would like, if she could find one, would rent for about $50 a month, but she and her husband cannot pay that much. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. 1940-49 Harlan Co Miners Deaths - USGenWeb sites I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. 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 . From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. ", What about the Southern Labor Union? It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. Done. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. 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. Before Senate Civil Liberties Committee. Washington, D.C., April 15 Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. They say no action has been taken on this report. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. 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. Blair. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. 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. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. Harlan county coal hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. 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. ", 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. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. Get a Demo. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Isolated trailer houses. 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. 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. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . Big Boy. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. Interview with Lois Scott, August 27, 1986 - Nunn Center The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. We huddle before breaking up. It is too early for dolor. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. 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 union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. He hopes the other side will do the same. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. 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. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. The Widows of Harlan County - CBS News No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. Documentary Noise: The Soundscape of Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, U Lifelong resident of Harlan. 25 (N.L.R.B. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. Zero Mine Explosion Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. When a miner complains, Jerry Johnson says, the foreman says, "If you don't like it, you can always get your bucket," meaning pick up your lunch bucket and get out. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . McDonald's. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with them. 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. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. The Price of Coal, Part II. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. Capitalizing on the general . What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? After the railroad arrived in 1911 . They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. James Willard Pope officiating. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. 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. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. 8 N.L.R.B. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". There is a suit still in litigation. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . The Harlan County Coal War - YouTube Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. Home - Harlan County That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. Biographical History . Their foothold there ultimately ended because the local clergy who were the labor organizers found out that the union was communist in nature and held animosity toward religion. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Domesticity and Depression: Kentucky Coal Mining, Song, and Organizing She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? 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. Garbage along the roadside. 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. The Three Point disaster was the worst suffered in the county since December 9, 1932, when 23 men were killed in an explosion in "Zero" Mine of Harlan Fuel Company, Yancey. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits.
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