Homestead+Strike


 * Homestead Strike 1892 **

= Andrew Carnegie = Andrew Carnegie was a major leader of the industrial age and a pioneer in the steel industry. Carnegie was born in Scotland to humble backgrounds. His father was a weaver, which was to be his profession, until the industrial revolution ended the need for hand weavers. When his father’s profession was deemed useless the family was reduced to poverty. This inspired Carnegie to become successful. In the 1848 the Carnegie family moved to America to escape the poverty of Scotland. In America Andrew worked first at a cotton mill then at a telegraph office where he met Thomas Scott, an employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who hired him as his personal secretary. Carnegie climbed the ladder at Pennsylvania Railroad until after the civil war, which had spurred the growth of the iron industry, when he resigned to associate with Keystone Bridge Company in replacing wooden bridges with iron ones. In the years to come Carnegie invested in steel production and bought the Homestead steel mill. The violent strikes at Homestead hurt Carnegie’s public reputation as union supporter. Although his reputation was tarnished his business was not. In 1900 Carnegie produced more metal than all of Great Britain. Also in 1900 Carnegie sold his steel company for 480 million dollars. After doing so, until his death in 1919 Carnegie focused his efforts on charitable causes by donating vast sums of his fortune to schools and public libraries.

** The Carnegie Steel Company and the Homestead Industrial Plant ** The Homestead Industrial plant in Pennsylvania was bought by steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie in 1881. His strategy for successful industry was vertical consolidation. Vertical consolidation is when one company owns all of the stages of production. In the steel industry this included the coke fields, the iron ore deposits, the steel mills, and finally the ships and railroads made with the steel. In achieving vertical consolidation Carnegie associated with Coke field owner, Henry Frick. Carnegie made Frick the president of the Carnegie Steel Company. As the president of the company, Frick wanted to disestablish the steel workers union and cut salaries to increase profit margins. Although Carnegie was publicly supportive of unions, the workers at his steel company often worked long hours on little pay. When the price of steel increased Carnegie agreed to Frick’s plan to break the unions at the steel plant. The unions protected the workers’ rights and created a minimum wage. Once the unions were broken the worker’s wages could be cut and would improve profits for the company. media type="youtube" key="RLlNQ-xBoP4" height="385" width="480"

=**What Happened** =  The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) had refused to compromise with the policies of Carnegie Steel Company president, Henry Frick. These policies entailed that the AA would no longer be accepted as a union. The union reacted to this by planning a strike. Frick planned for the workers who would be upset by the loss of their union by building a 12 foot high barbed wire fence around the plant. On the night before the Union’s contract expired, June 29, 1892, Henry Frick locked the Union out of the plant. This was because the union and the company had not come to an agreement on wages, and it had been previously decided that if there was no agreement, the company would no longer recognize the Union. The barbed wire fence constructed earlier that year was locked, and many other security measures were placed around the premises. While the Union only represented about 750 of Homestead’s workers, 3000 out of their 3800 total workers voted to launch a strike, planning to prevent the plant from replacing their positions with nonunion workers. Homestead workers also found that they had the support of their town behind them. They set up an organized committee, which regulated guards and rules. They patrolled the River next to the plant, picketed, kept watch over the town, and supervised communication so that the company had a difficult time trying to hire replacement workers. The night of July 5, Frick assembled 300 armed agents from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, an agency frequently used to quell industrial disruption. They were brought downriver on a barge, but by the time they reached the Homestead plant, the strikers had raised 5000 people to meet them on the banks of the river. Defying the crowd’s instruction, Pinkertons got off the ship, and fighting ensued. The fight lasted about 12 hours, until the Pinkertons surrendered. Many had been shot and wounded. After the fight ended, the local community continued to lash out at the Pinkertons, angered by the fighting. Their cause was described in their song entitled "The Homestead Strike," which said, : "Now, boys, we are out on strike, you can help us if you like, But you need not till I tell you what it’s about. They want to lower our wages, we think it is not right; So for union’s cause I want you all to shout. We will sing the union’s praise while our voices we can raise, With noble Mr. Garland at our head..." This song empasizes how strongly the union felt about their cause, and also how unique their strike was in the fact that it had designated leaders. Most strikes of its time did not. Their strike certainly did get the attention they called for in that song. Upon hearing of the chaos in Homestead, Governor Robert Pattison sent several thousand soldiers from the state militia, who seized the mill back from Union control. The plant soon resumed production, and the Union had ultimately lost.



** After the Strike ** Although the union of workers had defeated the Pinkertons and won the battle, in the long term, they lost. By the end of the strike, they had already lost much public support due to their cruel treatment of the Pinkertons. The strikers had not done any serious damage to the Carnegie Steel Company; it was a successful enough company that losing a few days of production did not do much harm. Secondly, the majority of the workers that had gone on strike were fairly easily replaceable. New technology eliminated the need for much skilled labor. Despite the union’s efforts to avoid this during the strike, nonunion workers (often African Americans or eastern European workers) soon came to fill positions (these replacements were called “scabs”). Soon, former workers who were not blacklisted had no choice but to take back their jobs without the conditions their former union had failed to win, such as higher wages. The entire plant and its new workers were guarded and watched by the state militia for four months following the strike. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers was no longer recognized, and this would remain true for the next 40 years for all unions in the steel industry. This defeat of the workers union represented a new theme that would repeat over the next few decades: the dominance of the management of industries over the workers. This concept upset one anarchist named Alexander Berkman, who made an attempt on Henry Frick’s life. He did not kill Frick, and many were upset for the negative attention he gave their cause- many were also upset about the loss of the union.

__Resources__

Cayton, Andrew, Elizabeth I. Perry, Linda Reed, and Allan M. Winker. //America: Pathways to the Present//. Boston, Ma: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print
====“Frick’s Fracas: Henry Frick Makes His Case.” Pittsburgh Post. July 8, 1892. Available from. "Homestead strike." //American History.// ABC-CLIO. http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com (accessed May 8, 2010). ==== ===="The Homestead Strike": //The Homestead Strike Songster// (New York: n.d.). Reprinted in Philip S. Foner, //American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century// (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 243.====