eabakkum Review of Harlan County U.S.A.

Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

A unique and courageous documentary about unionism

[9/10 · 1 October 2010]

Even for dedicated cadre members of a trade union this film is quite shocking. The film is a documentary about the coal miners of Harlan County in Kentucky. They organize a strike in order to extort the recognition of union contracts. They demand higher wages, since the mining company makes huge profits. In addition the safety at work is poor. The strikers get support from the UMW but of course maintain their own responsibility with respect to the formation of picket lines etcetera. The labor fight is particularly harsh for several reasons. First of all, the strike lasts for over a year, which is by all standards extremely long. And then there is the high level of violence. There are episodes, where both the picketers and the so-called scabs are armed with guns and sticks. Even the women of the miners carry sticks and bats. And two members of the trade union are actually murdered. First Yablonski, an official of the UMW, is murdered in Washington. If my understanding of the story is correct, apparently the ruthless director of the Boyle mining company had ordered his assassination. Later picketer Jones is shot dead in a fight with a scab. We don't see a comparable violence in the film Salt Of The Earth, which describes a similar strike, and was banned by the USA government. And although in the British miners campaign of the eighties the occasional police car was set on fire (the actions were directed against the government of Thatcher), the picketers never carried arms, not even sticks. Of course these may be cultural habits, but a good union takes her own responsibility to control the level of violence. There are other cultural differences: for instance, in the Netherlands the closed shop system has never become popular. Another point, which hampers the identification of the observer with the strikers, is their extreme poverty. In the Netherlands, until the fifties you could read the social position of people from the state of their teeth. This film is recorded a quarter of a century later, and the physical condition of these miners people is still miserable. This may be due to their incomplete health-insurance, and forces you to ponder over the conditions of a civilized society. This is certainly a responsibility of management in general, which fortunately in West-Europe during the past century has been strongly influenced by the Christian democrats and social-democracy. Anyway, eventually the strikers win and get their right to organize. Concerning the film, it contains unique footage. I like to hear the opinions of the common people, and their experiences with labor conditions in the past and present. Sometimes the scene selection is particularly shocking, for instance when during the burial of picketer Jones his mother seems to lose her senses and faints. Was this an act? It is an excellent idea to accompany the recordings by miners songs. For an economic conflict is just as much an emotional process as a pure business transaction, and emotions are best reflected in cultural and artistic manifestations. In fact, although the film is a documentary, it is by no means neutral in the selection of the shots and the scenes. Regrettably you will only get a faint impression of the demands of the union and their reasonableness. In a final vote on the agreement of 1974 the union members themselves are divided. And personally I would have appreciated English subtitles (for the hearing-impaired!). But overall Harlan County USA is a unique and courageous film, which yields a major contribution to the awakening of the people (if they are willing to look) and the search for a better society.