There aren't many graphics in this fantastic documentary, but I think the one that shows these statistics for 1975 is the most telling:
Coal company profits - up 170%
Miners wages - up 4%
Cost of living - up 7%
One of the key aspects driving profits is of course to keep costs down, and we see that, left unchecked, coal operators did that by exploiting workers in shameful, amoral ways. They erect communities of shanties with no water or indoor plumbing. They provide a very low minimum wage, and force workers to endure long hours inhaling coal dust without the benefit of any kind of mask. They resist all efforts to improve safety, with standards far below those of European countries, getting repeated extensions from Federal Bureau of mines to delay upgrades as long as possible (in one case in West Virginia, 16 times in 1968, prior to a mine explosion). Supervisors are known to dole out physical abuse on the job, and when workers sustain even major injuries, they are expected to be back on the job the following day. They don't provide health insurance and only allow for a meager pension after 40 years in the mines. As one worker describes it, the mules used are treated more carefully, because as a boss told him "We can always hire another man, but you gotta buy that mule."
This all leads to a strike in the 1970's by mine workers in poor Harlan County, Kentucky, and filmmaker Barbara Kopple was there for 13 months to capture it. The footage she gets is simply extraordinary. The level of access she got from embedding herself into the situation and bravely putting herself in harm's way, and the way she tells this story, is truly immersive. Early on she plunges us in to what it means to be in a coal mine, and while most of the rest is in meetings and on the picket line, it never lets up. The a cappella folk singing in the film is very powerful, and nowhere more so than when elderly Florence Reese sings the song she wrote 40+ years earlier during the bloody 1930's, "Which Side Are You On?" (later recorded by Peter Seeger and many others). The wives and women leaders of the strike are phenomenal, and are often more committed to being on the picket lines over the long haul of the strike, in one scene bravely chanting "We shall not be moved" after they've blocked access to the mines.
The things Duke Power did in response to labor attempting to organize included:
Collins doesn't delve into the history of the county, e.g. the bloody events of the 1930's that are often alluded to by those who lived it or heard about it from their families, but just look up "Harlan County War" if you care to. And of course there is still news in Harlan County to this day, e.g. in April 2019 Blackjewel went bankrupt and pulled direct deposit funds back from workers' accounts.
To those who would criticize the documentary for not "showing the other side," I would point out just how powerful and well-represented the coal and oil companies are in general, and even in this documentary, I don't see any of their positions distorted. We see their executives standing up and speaking regularly throughout, e.g. in front of their shareholders, articulating their positions on the strike, etc. It's not that they aren't shown, it's that their positions and actions are odious. One takes a page right out of the tobacco company playbook and claims that there is little link between inhaling coal dust on the job all day and getting black lung disease. Another one gives an incredibly condescending and sexist reply when asked about the role of miner's wives in strikes.
While watching, I couldn't help but wonder why in hell the owners don't just display a little humanity, but maybe the thing that stops them from doing that is exactly what got them to the top in the first place. Sheer unadulterated greed.
Favorite quote, from a worker talking to a cop in New York as he and others picket Wall Street and advocate the selling of Duke Power stock: "I mean, a lot of people don't understand that electricity burning over there, that somebody's dying every day for it. One man dies every day."
One of the key aspects driving profits is of course to keep costs down, and we see that, left unchecked, coal operators did that by exploiting workers in shameful, amoral ways. They erect communities of shanties with no water or indoor plumbing. They provide a very low minimum wage, and force workers to endure long hours inhaling coal dust without the benefit of any kind of mask. They resist all efforts to improve safety, with standards far below those of European countries, getting repeated extensions from Federal Bureau of mines to delay upgrades as long as possible (in one case in West Virginia, 16 times in 1968, prior to a mine explosion). Supervisors are known to dole out physical abuse on the job, and when workers sustain even major injuries, they are expected to be back on the job the following day. They don't provide health insurance and only allow for a meager pension after 40 years in the mines. As one worker describes it, the mules used are treated more carefully, because as a boss told him "We can always hire another man, but you gotta buy that mule."
This all leads to a strike in the 1970's by mine workers in poor Harlan County, Kentucky, and filmmaker Barbara Kopple was there for 13 months to capture it. The footage she gets is simply extraordinary. The level of access she got from embedding herself into the situation and bravely putting herself in harm's way, and the way she tells this story, is truly immersive. Early on she plunges us in to what it means to be in a coal mine, and while most of the rest is in meetings and on the picket line, it never lets up. The a cappella folk singing in the film is very powerful, and nowhere more so than when elderly Florence Reese sings the song she wrote 40+ years earlier during the bloody 1930's, "Which Side Are You On?" (later recorded by Peter Seeger and many others). The wives and women leaders of the strike are phenomenal, and are often more committed to being on the picket lines over the long haul of the strike, in one scene bravely chanting "We shall not be moved" after they've blocked access to the mines.
The things Duke Power did in response to labor attempting to organize included:
- Singling out leaders among the workers and abusing them on the job.
- Taking pictures of strikers in order to blacklist them.
- Bribing union bosses in order to get them on the owner's side.
- Sending goon squads around with guns to intimidate picketers by day, and shooting up their homes at night. Kopple captures some truly horrifying footage of "land foreman" Basil Collins and his thugs.
- Murdering Joseph Yablonski along with his wife and daughter in a mafia like hit, for daring to run in an election to replace corrupt union boss W.A. Boyle - for which Boyle would later be convicted.
- Utilizing the church, politicians, and police to cajole or intimidate strikers. As an elderly man describes his experience from the past, when he was a 10-year-old working 10 hour days and striking "I learned that the politicians worked with the coal companies. I found out that the union officials were working with the coal companies. I also found out that the Catholic hierarchy was working with the coal officials. Here was a combination of the whole thing, see, that you had to bump up against the whole combination of them."
- Corrupting the courts. After a 16-year-old wife and mother is left a widow when her husband, Lawrence Jones, is shot in the head by scab Bill Bruner, who was seen by witnesses, the killer is let off by a grand jury. In another courtroom, a frustrated woman says to the judge "The laws are not made for the working people in this country. ... The law was made for people like Carl Horn (President of Duke Power), not for us."
- Utilizing a propaganda campaign to diminish public support for strikers, getting them to believe they were communists, or going to "ruin America" by driving the cost of goods up (you know, instead of simply reducing profits for the company). Does that 'communist' rhetoric sound familiar? Just replace the word with 'socialist' in today's propaganda, and the sentiment is the same.
- Keeping other industries out of the area so that workers had nowhere else to go, thus monopolizing the labor market. This is stated by Houston Elmore, a UMW Organizer, and while especially insidious, I would have loved to see more that showed examples of how they did this.
- Assaulting the brave crew filming the documentary to bear witness.
- And of course, hiring scabs to replace them. Unions don't have a lot of power these days in America, but if this doesn't convince you to never cross a picket line as a worker or consumer, nothing will.
Collins doesn't delve into the history of the county, e.g. the bloody events of the 1930's that are often alluded to by those who lived it or heard about it from their families, but just look up "Harlan County War" if you care to. And of course there is still news in Harlan County to this day, e.g. in April 2019 Blackjewel went bankrupt and pulled direct deposit funds back from workers' accounts.
To those who would criticize the documentary for not "showing the other side," I would point out just how powerful and well-represented the coal and oil companies are in general, and even in this documentary, I don't see any of their positions distorted. We see their executives standing up and speaking regularly throughout, e.g. in front of their shareholders, articulating their positions on the strike, etc. It's not that they aren't shown, it's that their positions and actions are odious. One takes a page right out of the tobacco company playbook and claims that there is little link between inhaling coal dust on the job all day and getting black lung disease. Another one gives an incredibly condescending and sexist reply when asked about the role of miner's wives in strikes.
While watching, I couldn't help but wonder why in hell the owners don't just display a little humanity, but maybe the thing that stops them from doing that is exactly what got them to the top in the first place. Sheer unadulterated greed.
Favorite quote, from a worker talking to a cop in New York as he and others picket Wall Street and advocate the selling of Duke Power stock: "I mean, a lot of people don't understand that electricity burning over there, that somebody's dying every day for it. One man dies every day."