harlan county coal operators association

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. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. It was [and still is] used to signify that what happened in the realm of politics, a field largely controlled by men, affect women's everyday lives. As discussed in a previous video. 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.". They say no action has been taken on this report. A third generation coal operator, he served as President of the Harlan County Coal Operators and the Harlan Mining Institute, as Vice President of the Kentucky Coal Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Kentucky. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. The name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. Westmoreland Coal Company - Social Networks and Archival Context - SNAC The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. 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. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. But what of the people of Harlan County? "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - Plot - IMDb He then answers a question he wasn't asked. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. 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). "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. The women furnish the panel with a copy of a report from the Harlan County Health Department, dated October 12, 1973, which states that the drinking water in the Eastover mining camp, where approximately thirty of the striking Brookside families live, is "highly contaminated" with fecal bacteria. 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. PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan 8 N.L.R.B. All too many Americans are under the naive belief that, while unions may have been necessary in the 30's, they are no longer needed in the United States today. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. This law was enacted to try to reverse the hardships to those who were out of a job because of the economic collapse of the Great Depression. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" 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. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. The Benham Coal Company records (151 cubic feet, 302 Boxes; dated 1911-1973) focus primarily on the early years of Benham Coal through the 1940s. Now, forty-three years later, Harlan County is again gripped in a UMW strike, this time at the Brookside mine of the Eastover Mining Company, and another citizens' group has been formed. 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. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. . Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. The transcript will be published as a book. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." Two hundred people crowd. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." 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. My brother died at the age of forty. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. Capitalizing on the general . And I can't get you off of that couch. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. 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. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. Rev. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" 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. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. There is no water in the house. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. Lois Scott says that the women organized the Brookside Women's Club and got involved in the strike "because we knew that if the women didn't come in there would be violence." The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. Bill McQueen says that the shuttle car into the mine usually has no brakes, and that it can only be stopped by putting it in reverse. 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. Three Point Mine Explosion And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. My man was mashed up in the mines. Done. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . But relatives did come and take the children. Three Point Accident | Harlan Coal Scrip Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Killed - 12. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. 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. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. Free shipping for many products! The men and women were released on good behavior. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. Their foothold there ultimately ended because the local clergy who were the labor organizers found out that the union was communist in nature and held animosity toward religion. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. . "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. They are neatly and attractively dressed. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed.

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