Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. 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. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Project Summary. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. But you must remember I am an immoral man. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. McDonald's. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. The kind of house she would like, if she could find one, would rent for about $50 a month, but she and her husband cannot pay that much. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. Isolated trailer houses. 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. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. 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. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. The UMW had made written proposals for compromising these issues a little. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. 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. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." 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.". I have attended the University of Kentucky. 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. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . 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. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. 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. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. We are handed copies of court records concerning a certain Claude Beach, who has been hired by Eastover during the strike as a "security guard." He can't never walk again." 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. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. 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. But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. They are neatly and attractively dressed. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. 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." (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. "My daddy's a retired coal miner, and he's got the black lung. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. But is it really hurting? 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. He says that, standing. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" Lifelong resident of Harlan. 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. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. It is too early for dolor. The Price of Coal, Part II. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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". I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. Capitalizing on the general . The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. 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. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. 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. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. [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%. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. I remind her of what Bill Doan has said: "You work with one eye on the roof, one eye on your job, and your mind's outside.". The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. 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. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. (This . USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. Killed - 12. 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 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. There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. I've got five living children and four dead. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. 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 . Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. She's been picketing with the other women. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! 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. Copy with citation. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. 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. 9:03 PM. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. I say that the issue is whether or not the men will be allowed to have their own union to protect their safety and secure and maintain decent wages and benefits, that if enough pressure is put on Duke Power Company, maybe something will give. 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. ", What about federal inspection? With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. Biographical History . On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' 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. . 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. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. He hopes the other side will do the same. Early accounts of the Harlan County mine wars place the inability of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to establish a permanent foothold in the county, first at the feet of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at the worn work boots of miners who, when work was plentiful, saw little or no need for a union. Drift mines back into the mountains follow the seam of coal wherever it goes." 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. 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. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. It does not store any personal data. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. 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 . Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. Documentary of mining practices in Hazard County, Kentucky. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. 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. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. Grace Elizabeth Hale. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Each contract varied from mine to mine. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten .

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