Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. The warrant was never served. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. I look at the government statistics once more. There is a suit still in litigation. The Price of Coal, Part II. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . But what of the people of Harlan County? "A gun thug pulled a gun on us, and I broke a switch over his head, and the little gun thug pulled out," Lois Scott says matter-of-factly. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . The decrease in wages, unemployment, and irregular employment caused "poverty, hunger, and disease.". 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. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. 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. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. 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. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. So we lay down in the road." Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. 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. 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. 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. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) 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. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . Dan Pollitt reads a letter from Carl Horn, Jr., president of Duke Power Company, respectfully declining our invitation. [ citation needed ] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. 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. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. 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. Middleton died on the scene. Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. 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. My man was mashed up in the mines. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. 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. 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. My brother died at the age of forty. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. 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. . Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. I've got five living children and four dead. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. (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.) For a time after the hearing, he says, it appeared that Duke had softened. Done. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. By 1908 the union had . Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. [citation needed] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. 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. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Two hundred people crowd. Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. They say no action has been taken on this report. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? We never would find out what happened. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. Available for both RF and RM licensing. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . One of the better houses is already being demolished. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Now, forty-three years later, Harlan County is again gripped in a UMW strike, this time at the Brookside mine of the Eastover Mining Company, and another citizens' group has been formed. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? 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. There was no standard contract for the miners. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. 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. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. 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. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. 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. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. They are neatly and attractively dressed. 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. The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". He speaks of "my people" and "my men." 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. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. 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. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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. 4 . I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. 1938) Copy Citation . As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Where will the families go? "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. It does not store any personal data. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. She's been picketing with the other women. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. He says that, standing. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . I have attended the University of Kentucky. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. Lifelong resident of Harlan. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. 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 . The Harlan Daily Enterprise story of September 16, 1943 is serious and straightforward: 17 miners are trapped a mile underground and help is on the way.. Much of the story is about help. Word precedes him. 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. 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. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. 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 . Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". Isolated trailer houses. What a marvelous view! There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. 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. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . The Harlan County Coal Operators Association, still functioning today, spent nearly a half million dollars from 1927 to 1938 to combat unionism, most of it going to pay strongarm men to terrorize . The records show that Beach was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1954 and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, that he was later charged with carrying a concealed pistol (no disposition shown), and that in 1966 he was tried and acquitted on a murder charge. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. Darrell Deaton, president of the Brookside UMW local, says he was caught in a belt line last year because he had to work alone, without a helper. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. The miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." Big Boy. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". 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). What did the foremen say on those occasions? Faith Primitive Baptist Church. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. And we're burning up people to make electricity. Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." There are very few vacant houses in the county. 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 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. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. It is too early for dolor. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. 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.