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. 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. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. It does not store any personal data. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. 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The Seco Train Accident September 20, 1917, New Bank in the Coal Country Installed in 1911, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, https://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, The Flatwoods Monster: Weird Appalachia Cases, Rotherwood Mansion: Weird Appalachia Cases, The Brown Mountain Ghostly Lights: Weird Appalachia Cases. Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . 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. (This . Available for both RF and RM licensing. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. 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. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. They're trapped. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. 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. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. Killed - 12. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. 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. He says that, standing. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. It read: RE-ELECT GAW, JAILER. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. And we're burning up people to make electricity. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. But you must remember I am an immoral man. 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. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. However, the battle continues to this day. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. He fined the UMW $20,000. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. . On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. 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. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! 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". It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. 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. 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. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. There is no water in the house. . Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. By 1908 the union had . 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 . Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." So we lay down in the road." 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. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. The 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. 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. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; I look at the government statistics once more. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." 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. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. 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. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Overturned car bodies everywhere. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . He then answers a question he wasn't asked. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. The men and women were released on good behavior. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. 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. The company will probably demand a new election. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. 3.' It doesn't seem like enough. 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. 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). 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. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. 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." A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. But is it really hurting? Done Citation. Exist Dates. The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. The median family income is $4600 a year. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. Interview Summary. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. He hopes the other side will do the same. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. 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. 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 personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. Expand. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. 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. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. 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. My man was mashed up in the mines. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. 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. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? I've got five living children and four dead. 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. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. 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." In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. Genders. Each of us makes a statement. Dateline Newport News, Virginia, November 12, 1931: Dreiser denies the charge and says he wants people to concentrate on the facts of the labor dispute and "get the American mind off sex for a moment." The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. There is a suit still in litigation. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. Get a Demo. Yarborough replies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". 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. 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. 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. 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. . I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." 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. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. 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. The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. 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. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. But what of the people of Harlan County? (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. 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. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. 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. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. The committee has invited owners as well as workers to participate in the hearings, but the impression we get is that management will not appear. But relatives did come and take the children. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. There was no standard contract for the miners. The miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. 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. She says that the women decided that they couldn't fight guns with switches and that they had taken sticks with them the next time. On September 9, 1935, for the first time since the beginning of the war, troops were dispatched to Harlan County on behalf of the miners by the Governor of the State of Kentucky. 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. 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. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. 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. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. 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 . The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired.