those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. 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. . As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. Project Summary. It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. 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. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. We huddle before breaking up. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. 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. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Mr. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. [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%. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. 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. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. 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. 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. They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. "A gun thug pulled a gun on us, and I broke a switch over his head, and the little gun thug pulled out," Lois Scott says matter-of-factly. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. He hopes the other side will do the same. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. 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. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. Isolated trailer houses. . 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. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. 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 . They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. 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. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. 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. 2012: $1,552,717. 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). Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. Yarborough replies. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The women spent the night. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. It read: RE-ELECT GAW, JAILER. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. . The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. He can't never walk again." CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. It is too early for dolor. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. It was Miller who defeated W. A. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. 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.". "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. The median family income is $4600 a year. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. As discussed in a previous video. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. No. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. The transcript will be published as a book. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? 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. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. 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 . Exist Dates. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. One of the better houses is already being demolished. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. Almost immediately after the explosion became known rescue teams, under the direction of J. F. Bryson, safety director of the Harlan County Coal Operators association, started into the entry. 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. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. or smaller. 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.