Interview with Joseph E. Phipps, August 15, 1986
Project: Appalachia: Immigrants in the Coal Fields Oral History Project
Interview Summary
At the time of this interview, Mr. Phipps was president of District 19 of the United Mine Workers of America. He talks extensively about coal mining and how technology has changed it during his lifetime. He began his own career as a common miner, and then became a union organizer. He discusses in detail the tactics, both legal and illegal, used by coal operators to discourage miners from joining the union, and also the role of the National Labor Relations Board which Phipps believes favors the coal operators. Phipps also talks about changes in the U.M.W.A. over the last forty years.Other topics covered by Mr. Phipps are coal mine safety, and the role immigrant miners played in building both Middlesboro and Lynch, Kentucky. He also talks about a speech given by John L. Lewis in Cincinnati in the early 1960s that stopped a riot that had broken out on the convention floor during a U.M.W.A. election.
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Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.
All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.
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Phipps, Joseph E. Interview by Doug Cantrell. 15 Aug. 1986. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
Phipps, J.E. (1986, August 15). Interview by D. Cantrell. Appalachia: Immigrants in the Coal Fields Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.
Phipps, Joseph E., interview by Doug Cantrell. August 15, 1986, Appalachia: Immigrants in the Coal Fields Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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Persistent Link for this Record: https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7f7m040j6c