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I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . 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". The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. But relatives did come and take the children. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. Exist Dates. In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . Lifelong resident of Harlan. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? October 31, 2016. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. He hopes the other side will do the same. I look at the government statistics once more. "The danger's just the same," they say. There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. Capitalizing on the general . On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. 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. After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. Genders. 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. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. So we lay down in the road." Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? 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. 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. 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. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. . From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' When drafting these articles, I found that many things have not been taught to the future generations about the struggles for coal miner rights have been in the Appalachian Mountains. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. There are very few vacant houses in the county. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. . Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . They are neatly and attractively dressed. 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. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. 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. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. 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 coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. It was Miller who defeated W. A. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. 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. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. 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. 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. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. 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. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. 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. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. 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." Done Citation. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. 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. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. 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 . The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. 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. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. "If we could monitor these inspections, perhaps we could cut down on the fatalities," he says. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . When the smoke had cleared, the bodies of three guards and one miner were found, and an undetermined number of other dead and dying had been carried away into the mountains. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" No. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. 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. 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. 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. Strikebreakers were often beaten. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. ", 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. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. 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 . 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. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. 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. Did she find the stick on the ground? had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. 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. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. 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 . He was transferred to a worse section, he says. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. [ 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%. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? 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. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. Listen to "Harlan County Coal" from Pistol Annies' album, 'Hell of a Holiday,' out now: https://pa.lnk.to/HOAHAY Chorus:Making decorations out of shotgun she. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. They're trapped. Done. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . He then answers a question he wasn't asked. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. "We've took about all we can take," he says. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". By 1908 the union had . To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Interview Summary. 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. The money was . Grace Elizabeth Hale. 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. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. 2011: $1,161,330. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. 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.". 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. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. B.W. Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. It was settled in 1819 by Virginians led by Samuel Howard and was known as Mount Pleasant until renamed in 1912 for Major Silas Harlan, who was killed during the American Revolution at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. When a miner complains, Jerry Johnson says, the foreman says, "If you don't like it, you can always get your bucket," meaning pick up your lunch bucket and get out. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. He fined the UMW $20,000. And we're burning up people to make electricity. 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. America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush 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 of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at "We took the sticks with us," she says. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." 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. We're all involved. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. 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. 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. Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. 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. 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 union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. 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. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. 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. This action did not go unnoticed by the labor unions and the United Mine Workers union decided to attempt to organize the already-impoverished labor force of the area. Cite. 2012: $1,552,717. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams?