To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . 1931, only $13.5 million. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. What did the foremen say on those occasions? Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. She says that the women decided that they couldn't fight guns with switches and that they had taken sticks with them the next time. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. Capitalizing on the general . As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. "The danger's just the same," they say. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. 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 . 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. Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. 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. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. By 1908 the union had . They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. 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. Darrell Deaton, president of the Brookside UMW local, says he was caught in a belt line last year because he had to work alone, without a helper. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . 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. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. 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. 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 . "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . Yarborough is tough and unyielding. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. 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. He says that negotiations were broken off on November 28, 1973, because of the miners' insistence on the full terms of the standard UMW contract. Interview Summary. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . 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. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. The men and women were released on good behavior. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. [ 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%. 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. 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. 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. 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." Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. 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. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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. 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. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. "I've been juiced a lot, and I've had to just set down thirty-five minutes because it just takes the pep out of you." There is a suit still in litigation. 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 There are very few vacant houses in the county. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Figure 2: Harlan County Coal Mine Employment, 2000-2016, (KYEEC, 2017) In 1942, shortly after Harlan County experienced record high coal mine employment, the county experienced is highest production levels with 15.6 million tons of coal being produced in this year (KYEEC, 2017). If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. 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. 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. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. 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. Its initial land holdings were in the Irwin gas coal basin in Westmoreland County, but as these were exhausted the company purchased 14,000 acres of undeveloped coal land along the border of Boone and Logan Counties in West Virginia in 1923-28. . Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. 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. 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. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. Overturned car bodies everywhere. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. 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. ", 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." Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home.

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