harlan county coal operators association

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. And I can't get you off of that couch. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." 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. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. 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 miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. It is too early for dolor. Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. Along the way, we pass through the community of Brookside, its mine-camp houses dominated by the brooding tin presence of the Eastover mine building on the hill. But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. 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. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. ", What about the Southern Labor Union? "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. 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. The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. 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. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. The Price of Coal, Part II. 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. . 2011: $1,161,330. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. 4 . The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. 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. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Yarborough's affidavit stated that "the group swarmed out into the roads, stopped cars, and forced company employees into coercive conversations and indulged in generally raucous name-calling and abuse." 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. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. 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. Done. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. ", 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 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 . Genders. or smaller. 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. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called upon and arrived for the first time in the county to try to stem the violence. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. 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. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". But relatives did come and take the children. 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. 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. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. 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. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. Mr. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. Capitalizing on the general . 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.". "Not at all," Yarborough says. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? My brother died at the age of forty. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." 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. After breakfast, we travel fifteen miles east to Evarts. 1938) Copy Citation . Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. 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. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. by Ron Soodalter. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' He hopes the other side will do the same. 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. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. When this strike was broken in1924, none of the non-union mines in Harlan County, all of which were members ofthe Harlan County Coal Operators Association, would employ a man from BlackMountain."Many of the men who worked at Black Mountain transferred to LocalUnion No. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. 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. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. the meeting room. "In Harlan County, U.S.A., sound anchors, explains, and makes 'authentic' visual imagery compromised by the long history of documentary work in Appalachia.". 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. They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts. Drift mines back into the mountains follow the seam of coal wherever it goes." Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. Done. 9:03 PM. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. 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. The National Industrial Recovery Act only partially succeeded in accomplishing its stated goals when it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on May 27, 1935, which was three weeks before the Act was set to expire. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County.

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