It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. Capitalizing on the general . Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. Two hundred people crowd. Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners . "Not at all," Yarborough says. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? 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.". (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. 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. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. "In Harlan County, U.S.A., sound anchors, explains, and makes 'authentic' visual imagery compromised by the long history of documentary work in Appalachia.". 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 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. Middleton died on the scene. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Documentary of mining practices in Hazard County, Kentucky. The Act also made a provision for a National Labor-Relations Board to designate a legal structure for the workers to conduct fair and legal elections of their officers and representatives. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . So we lay down in the road." Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. 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. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" Word precedes him. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. He fined the UMW $20,000. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. 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. Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. The women spent the night. 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. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . The company will probably demand a new election. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . Blair. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. I have attended the University of Kentucky. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. 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 . Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." 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. 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. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. 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. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. 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 . Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. [ 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%. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. What did the foremen say on those occasions? (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. 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. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. Si has signed on as head of the staff for the Citizens Inquiry, which is funded with a five-thousanddollar grant from the Field Foundation. My man was mashed up in the mines. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. It was Miller who defeated W. A. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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 . Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. 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 In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. 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 United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." 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. Garbage along the roadside. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. 2011: $1,161,330. There is no water in the house. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. 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. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Each of us makes a statement. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. The AFSC fed almost 1500 children in Harlan by the end of the 1931-2 schoolyear, as well as about a hundred nursing and expectant mothers. The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. The Citizens Inquiry meets in the attractive, river-rock Evarts Community Center, directly across the Clear Fork from the site of the 1931 "Battle of Evarts." 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. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. 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. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. . 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. He says that, standing. We come into Harlan County at dusk. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? or smaller. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. When filmmaker Barbara Kopple traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, the resulting Academy award-winning documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) captured a historic story. ~~ David Sergent. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments.
Pisces Weekly Love Horoscope Yahoo,
Articles H