They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. Get a Demo. 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. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)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, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.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, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. "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. 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. 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. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Exist Dates. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. I look at the government statistics once more. 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. 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 . "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. . 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. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Mr. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. 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 County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. Barbara says that she was reacting spontaneously to the spirit and determination exhibited by the women, that their testimony was the highlight of our hearings. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. 4 . A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" 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. 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.". 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. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. ", What about federal inspection? These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. It is the second coal mining fatality in . On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. 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. 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. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. 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. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". ", 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. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. 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 cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. 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. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. [6] Nearly four thousand miners working and living in Harlan County, Kentucky lost their jobs in the Great Depression. The Price of Coal, Part II. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. or smaller. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . 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. "My daddy's a retired coal miner, and he's got the black lung. "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. 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. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. 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. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 3.' Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. Freda Armes says, "I run him off. 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". No, Yarborough says; it just serves as a central clearing house, so that job applicants won't have to go around and apply at each of the mines separately. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. (This . That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. It is too early for dolor. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. 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 fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) Blair. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Big Boy. 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. . If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" I've got five living children and four dead. 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. They're trapped. 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. It read: RE-ELECT GAW, JAILER. Biographical History . Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. What a marvelous view! What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. the meeting room. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. However, the battle continues to this day. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. 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. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Faith Primitive Baptist Church. Capitalizing on the general . When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. 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. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. 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. 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. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." 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. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . 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. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. Cite. It does not store any personal data. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. 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. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. Prior to Miller's election, the union had become corrupt, dictatorial, and a frequent collaborator with the mine owners. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. 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. B.W. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. Lifelong resident of Harlan. Available for both RF and RM licensing. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. 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. Why is garbage left on the roadway? These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. 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. But is it really hurting? It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. fastest nba player to 3,000 points, wreck in lawrenceburg, ky today, does sevin kill lubber grasshoppers,
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