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"Which Side Are You On...?": Coal Miners Strike in Harlan, KY.

By VVAW

Harlan County, Kentucky has a long history of militant struggle. In 1931, "Evart?s Fight" took place in which miners foiled an ambush by company gun thugs during a strike. Five miners and seven guards were killed in the battle. Out of that struggle, Florence Reece wrote the labor song "Which side are you on?": They say in Harlan county, there are no neutrals there, you?ll either be a union man of a thug for J.H. Blair."

Five more workers died from company machine-gun fire in 1941; and others died in ones and twos throughout the thirties and forties in battles with gun thugs. Even in this repressive atmosphere for survival, the union and the workers remained strong.

In the fifties, the coal industry ran into trouble and so did the union. Mechanization was allowed to develop without making any provisions for the people thrown out of work. The union leadership became questionable at this time as a result of their lack of concern for the workers and the continual signing of sweet-heart contracts.

The conditions under which people worked and the union itself went steadily down-hill, but the miners militancy continued. In 1965, there was an unsuccessful strike which was due primarily to weak union backing. Miners were supposed to receive $25 in weekly strike benefits, but the benefits were sent in cash to district officials who pocketed most of the money.

In 1970, the company forced the workers into a company controlled union. Then on June 26th of this year, the miners voted the company union out, and the United Mine Workers in to represent the. The strike began when Eastover Mining (a subsidiary of Duke Power Co.) refused to grant demands calling for higher wages, an improved medical plan, increased job safety and security, and a seniority system.

In the past months, the coal mine owners and local power structure (particularly the courts) have been making an all-out united effort to crush the union of the United Mine Workers in Harlan.

The Circuit Court judge, Byrd Hogg, issued an injunction limiting the union to three pickets at each entrance to the mine. When supporters organized a picket line of their own, Hogg extended the injunction to the non-union pickets and then charged them with contempt of court.

While the miners had to work ten hours a day for eight hours of pay (the trip in and out of the mine itself does not count) and risk their lives in unsafe conditions, the Duke Power Company raked in more than $90 million in profits last year. Among Duke?s Board of Directors are men who sit as directors of General Motors, J.P. Morgan Co., Burlington Industries, etc.

The strike is the central key in the union organizing effort to better the life of the working people in eastern Kentucky. As Mary Widner, a supporter who was thrown in jail for picketing said: "I don?t want to go back to jail, but if it means helping Kentucky and helping my kids, I?ll do it; you have to."

Another miner, Jerry Johnson said: "With so many young men, and the backing of the United Mine Workers and the way they?ve come through, and Duke Power being rich enough to settle with us, I think we?ll win. Anyway, when you?ve got nothing to start with, you?ve got nothing to lose. And we?ve seen too much hell in Harlan not to fight this as hard and as long as it takes to win."