There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. It read: RE-ELECT GAW, JAILER. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. 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 "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. 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. Poffitt, Jacqueline Brophy, and I meet the other members of the Citizens Inquiry in a private dining room in the Mount Aire: James David Barber, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University and author of The Presidential Character; Monsignor Geno Baroni, president of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, a Catholic priest whose father is a retired Pennsylvania miner with black lung; Barbara Bode, president of the Children's Foundation in Washington; and Dr. Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, North Carolina, president of the Southern Regional Council. It does not store any personal data. 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. . 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. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. We're all involved. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." . If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. by Ron Soodalter. 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. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. 3.' 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. B.W. 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. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. 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 "Other. What a marvelous view! Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. 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. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. 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. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. 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. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". The women say they then organized a "sunrise worship service" to begin at 4:30 on the morning of October 23, on the railroad tracks across the highway from the picket line. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . We never would find out what happened. Wirtz says that his arbitration experience tells him that if Eastover really wants to negotiate in good faith, the remaining issues, tough as they are, can probably be worked out. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. 4 . 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. 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. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. "Here at Brookside, if you called someone from SLU, he might come in a week, he might come in two weeks, but when he did come, he'd go into Eastover's office and talk for an hour," Bill Doan says. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? 25 (N.L.R.B. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. "We've took about all we can take," he says. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) 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. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. 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 . The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. My man was mashed up in the mines. Blair. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. 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. 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. The transcript will be published as a book. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. I look at the government statistics once more. 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. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. 9:03 PM. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. Middleton died on the scene. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The local grand jury returned an indictment against Dreiser for adultery, but by that time Dreiser had finished his work and had left the county on the train. 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. 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. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. 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. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." (This . Where will the families go? California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. (Eastover, to repeat, now pays portal-to-portal wages for inside workers in its other mines and has raised the wages of nonstrikers to the UMW level.) However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? It was [and still is] used to signify that what happened in the realm of politics, a field largely controlled by men, affect women's everyday lives. Abstract. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. "If we could monitor these inspections, perhaps we could cut down on the fatalities," he says. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. It was Miller who defeated W. A. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. 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. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. 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. But you must remember I am an immoral man. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . 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. Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. And I can't get you off of that couch. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. 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. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. The miners, impoverished due to their already low pay (this coming in the form of company scrip, room, and board), decided enough was enough, and some of them . 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. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. 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." Strikebreakers were often beaten. Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. Isolated trailer houses. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . 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. But relatives did come and take the children. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." 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. 5355, atEvarts . There is a suit still in litigation. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . He says that negotiations were broken off on November 28, 1973, because of the miners' insistence on the full terms of the standard UMW contract. 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 . 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. Why is garbage left on the roadway? October 31, 2016. But is it really hurting? They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. Or all you're gonna get's a chunk of Harlan County coal. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. 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. the meeting room. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. Killed - 12. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. In 1973 the 13-month Brookside Strike brought almost 200 workers to battle Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant, a company owned by Duke Power. Kahn says that the miners were encouraged by Eastover's management, headed by Norman Yarborough, to join a small "company union," the Southern Labor Union. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Get a Demo. Copy with citation. "Not at all," Yarborough says. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. Did she find the stick on the ground? Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. It is the second coal mining fatality in . He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. 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. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. 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. He says that wages are no longer a problem and that the amount of the royalty to be paid into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund is not crucially important. The company will probably demand a new election. 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. James Willard Pope officiating. 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. 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. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. 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 . Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Lifelong resident of Harlan. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. 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. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. 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. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. 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. 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. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. 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. Biographical History . 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." The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. 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. 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. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . The UMW had made written proposals for compromising these issues a little. 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. 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. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. Word precedes him. Harlan County. He discusses the formation and activities of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association . It is too early for dolor. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. Exist Dates. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks .