harlan county coal operators association

McDonald's. Make your practice more effective and efficient with Casetext's legal research suite. 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 . I have attended the University of Kentucky. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . Dan Pollitt reads a letter from Carl Horn, Jr., president of Duke Power Company, respectfully declining our invitation. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. And I can't get you off of that couch. ", 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. The miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." "We've took about all we can take," he says. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. The Coal Strike of 1902: Turning Point in U.S. Policy Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association's (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. 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. . It doesn't seem like enough. 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. ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." Capitalizing on the general . Burger Chef. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? But you must remember I am an immoral man. 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. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. So we lay down in the road." Two more Inquiry panel members join us, Willard Wirtz, who was Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and the Reverend Max Glenn, executive director of the Commission on Religion in Appalachia. 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. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. Remembering Bloody Harlan | Parallel Narratives Expand. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes Done. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . 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. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. My brother died at the age of forty. [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. - Details - SNAC Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. Our History - Kentucky Coal Association "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Harlan County War - Wikipedia I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. 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. 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. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. 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. Si Kahn says that Eastover tried for a time to operate the mine with "scabs," but that the mine was shut down when the coal miners' wives and other women joined the men on the picket line. 2012: $1,552,717. Life After Coal in Harlan County, U.S.A. - In These Times Quakers and Bloody Harlan - Appalachian History The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. The Brookside Women's Club of Harlan County - New York Women in Film When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with 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. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. 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. "We took the sticks with us," she says. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. 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. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. 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. 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. But relatives did come and take the children. We come into Harlan County at dusk. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. 4 . Battle of Evarts - Wikipedia Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." ", What about federal inspection? PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. Which Side are You On? : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 B.W. 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. 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. The women spent the night. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. Filmed during the coal strike of 1974-1975, this documentary does much to capture the tension brought on by the injustice of the coal operators to the coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. Done Citation. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. Harlan | Kentucky, United States | Britannica Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Why is garbage left on the roadway? We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Coal Strike May End, But Miners Still Fear Future 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. "Faith, power, and conflict: Miner preachers and the United Mine Worker J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." I've got five living children and four dead. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. "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. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. . A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. October 31, 2016. The Widows of Harlan County - CBS News Faith, power, and conflict: Miner preachers and the United Mine Workers The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. They lobby in Frankfort and Washington and sponsor an annual "Coal Miners Day" to try to get more high school students interested in mining engineering. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. 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. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. Kentucky Coal Association - Ballotpedia Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. James Willard Pope officiating. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . Harlan County: Working in the Coal Mines - kygs.org In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. 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. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. 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. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. 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. COMING THE BOYS OF HARLAN - The Washington Post (This . As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. 25 (N.L.R.B. 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. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" 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 made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. 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. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. "In Harlan County, U.S.A., sound anchors, explains, and makes 'authentic' visual imagery compromised by the long history of documentary work in Appalachia.". I look at the government statistics once more. Members of The Harlan County Medical Society 1932 Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. 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. My man was mashed up in the mines. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. We're all involved. The transcript will be published as a book. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. Harlan County Struggle Collection, 1931-1932 - LibraryHost 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. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. 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. Printing - Angelfire Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. 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. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - User - IMDb or smaller. 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. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. It is the second coal mining fatality in . There is a suit still in litigation. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. 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. We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. (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.) 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. Interview with Lois Scott, August 27, 1986 - Nunn Center Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. 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. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. Si has signed on as head of the staff for the Citizens Inquiry, which is funded with a five-thousanddollar grant from the Field Foundation. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. We never would find out what happened. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. Home - Harlan County 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. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. 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. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. 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 . Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. Three Point Accident | Harlan Coal Scrip On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. 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. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. Steeped in Appalachian culture and surrounded by the influence of coal, Harlan County has amassed an interesting reputation and national attention with rest of the world. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. 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 United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. 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. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." 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. Big Boy. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. .

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