Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. 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. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. Get a Demo. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. Rev. The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. Exist Dates. 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. So we lay down in the road." The transcript will be published as a book. She's been picketing with the other women. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. (That is a tough point.) Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. Big Boy. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. In June of 1973, workers at the Brookside coal mine in Harlan County, Kentucky voted 113-55 to replace their membership in the Southern Labor Union (SLU) and join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. 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. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". 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 sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. They say no action has been taken on this report. National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. 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. Dan Pollitt reads a letter from Carl Horn, Jr., president of Duke Power Company, respectfully declining our invitation. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. As discussed in a previous video. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. Poffitt, Jacqueline Brophy, and I meet the other members of the Citizens Inquiry in a private dining room in the Mount Aire: James David Barber, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University and author of The Presidential Character; Monsignor Geno Baroni, president of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, a Catholic priest whose father is a retired Pennsylvania miner with black lung; Barbara Bode, president of the Children's Foundation in Washington; and Dr. Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, North Carolina, president of the Southern Regional Council. Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. 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. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. 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. 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. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . 8 N.L.R.B. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. On Friday, March 25, a continuous mining machine operator was killed by a wall collapse at the Huff Creek No. ", What about the Southern Labor Union? 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. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. 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 McDonald's. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. I've got five living children and four dead. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. [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%. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. 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. James Willard Pope officiating. But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. . We never would find out what happened. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. No, Yarborough says; it just serves as a central clearing house, so that job applicants won't have to go around and apply at each of the mines separately. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. . Jacqueline Brophy is the daughter of Pat Brophy, who went into the mines when he was twelve, and who, in 1926, ran against John L. Lewis and lost. 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 meeting room. The money was . Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. 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." "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. 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. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . They're trapped. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" 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. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners The warrant was never served. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. 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. 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 . Steeped in Appalachian culture and surrounded by the influence of coal, Harlan County has amassed an interesting reputation and national attention with rest of the world. I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. 25 (N.L.R.B. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. 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. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. "Not at all," Yarborough says. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. "The danger's just the same," they say. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. Copy with citation. 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 . We are joined by Bernie Aaronson, the young public relations director of the UMW, and John Ed Pierce, a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending?