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. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Harlan County War | Military Wiki | Fandom 13Month Strike is Ended By Kentucky Mine Accord 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. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. 4 . 1931, only $13.5 million. 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. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." He was transferred to a worse section, he says. PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan The warrant was never served. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. ", What about federal inspection? One of the better houses is already being demolished. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Each of us makes a statement. 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. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. On the plane with me, it turns out, is another member of the Citizens Inquiry, Jacqueline Brophy, who is the director of the Labor-Liberal Arts Program of Cornell University's School of Industrial Labor Relations in New York. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" 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 miners and their families. This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931 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. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? 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 . I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. "Bloody Harlan" Revisited: Blackjewel Miners Draw On Labor History 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 latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. They are neatly and attractively dressed. 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. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? . There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. (This . No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. [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%. Available for both RF and RM licensing. 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. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. As discussed in a previous video. 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. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. The Price of Coal, Part II. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. Middleton died on the scene. The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. 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. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. He then answers a question he wasn't asked. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Harlan County | Encyclopedia.com Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. Did she find the stick on the ground? The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. The decrease in wages, unemployment, and irregular employment caused "poverty, hunger, and disease.". or smaller. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. We never would find out what happened. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Copy as parenthetical citation. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. It was Miller who defeated W. A. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. Westmoreland Coal Company - Social Networks and Archival Context - SNAC The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. Printing - Angelfire The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . They say no action has been taken on this report. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. October 31, 2016. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." We huddle before breaking up. 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. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. Harlan County: Working in the Coal Mines - kygs.org On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. "I've been juiced a lot, and I've had to just set down thirty-five minutes because it just takes the pep out of you." Mr. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Resources | Harlan Coal Scrip This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. We come into Harlan County at dusk. Harlan County, KY, coal miners win affiliation with UMWA union, United 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. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan 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. Two hundred people crowd. [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. 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. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . 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. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. 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.

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