With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. 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. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. Dateline Newport News, Virginia, November 12, 1931: Dreiser denies the charge and says he wants people to concentrate on the facts of the labor dispute and "get the American mind off sex for a moment." In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. 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. He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. 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. He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. 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. The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. He then answers a question he wasn't asked. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. (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 relatives did come and take the children. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. October 31, 2016. He says that, standing. 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. Documents the 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike against the operators of the Brookside mine and the Duke Power Company, which resulted from the company's refusal to honor the . We never would find out what happened. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. Blair. The Price of Coal, Part II. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. 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. 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. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. Evarts welcomed the miners because it was filled with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores and company men in political positions vanish. Done. There is a suit still in litigation. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. 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 Three Point disaster was the worst suffered in the county since December 9, 1932, when 23 men were killed in an explosion in "Zero" Mine of Harlan Fuel Company, Yancey. [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . Two hundred people crowd. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." 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. The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. 1931, only $13.5 million. What did the foremen say on those occasions? What a marvelous view! Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. The miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. We come into Harlan County at dusk. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. However, the battle continues to this day. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. Burger Chef. Rev. Abstract. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. It doesn't seem like enough. Interview Summary. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. The decrease in wages, unemployment, and irregular employment caused "poverty, hunger, and disease.". One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. 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. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. 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. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. Grace Elizabeth Hale. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. As discussed in a previous video. 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. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. "We've took about all we can take," he says. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. "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. 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. Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. 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. Copy as parenthetical citation. I look at the government statistics once more. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. 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. 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. 25 (N.L.R.B. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Exist Dates. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. 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. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. We huddle before breaking up. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. But you must remember I am an immoral man. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. 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. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. 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. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Grover Jennings says that six months ago he applied for a job at the Mary Helen mine and was apparently accepted, but that when he went back for his physical, Clyde Goitis, an official at the mine, said, "Buddy, there just ain't no way I can do anything for you. Dan Pollitt reads a letter from Carl Horn, Jr., president of Duke Power Company, respectfully declining our invitation. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. It does not store any personal data. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. 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. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. 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. These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. 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. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. By 1908 the union had . Big Boy. the meeting room. 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. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. 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. . On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. ", What about federal inspection? 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. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. 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. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. I've got five living children and four dead. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. 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 cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
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