This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931. The Harlan County Coal Operators’ Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. This started the Harlan County Coal War for 8 years! - ThreadSky

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erikloomis.bsky.social • 12 days ago

This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931. The Harlan County Coal Operators’ Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. This started the Harlan County Coal War for 8 years!

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erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

The Harlan County Coal War is one of the last period of serious violence between labor and management before the development of American labor law in the New Deal.

erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

Coal owners despised unions and routinely killed organizers. That got a little bit harder for them in the more liberal twentieth century, but the hollers of West Virginia and Kentucky were really remote.

erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

Whatever conversations were happening in Washington or even Lexington were pretty far away from the reality of life in Harlan and Hazard.

erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

On the ground, owners hired gun-toting thugs and showed little concern about the lives of miners. These were medieval fiefdoms existing in twentieth-century America.

erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

In West Virginia, the late 1910s and early 1920s saw significant violence between the United Mine Workers of America and the employers.

erikloomis.bsky.social•12 days ago

The 1920 Matewan Massacre, the shootout between UMWA supporters and members of the Baldwin-Felts Agency was one of the rare times where law enforcement sided with workers. For his trouble, the coal companies assassinated Matewan police chief Sid Hatfield, which spawned the Battle of Blair Mountain.

charlesprimm.bsky.social•11 days ago

Dave Alvin wrote a great song about this county.

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