Homestead Steel Strike

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HOMESTEAD STEEL STRIKE

The industrialization of the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century involved a complex and unsettling social and economic transformation of U.S. society. The spread of factory towns, urban living, transportation networks, and new technologies were catalysts for the reorganization of American life. So, too, were the emergence of the American corporation, which concentrated industrial wealth and power in the hands of a new economic elite, and the mass labor union, which sought to protect the burgeoning ranks of factory workers. The Homestead Steel Strike of 1892, which pitted the industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, was one of the most dramatic expressions of the sharpening conflict between the corporation and the union—between capital and labor—on the terrain of industrializing America.

Homestead, Pennsylvania, was the center of Andrew Carnegie's enormous steel empire, the Carnegie Steel Corporation, which produced fully one-quarter of the world's steel by 1892. Its work force was concentrated in Homestead, a town of 12,000. Most of the steelworkers belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. With 24,000 members, the union was one of the most important members of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

Carnegie himself, along with most other business leaders of the time, possessed a deep opposition to unions. He viewed the Amalgamated as a dangerous organization that not only weakened his ability to treat labor as a freely disposed commodity, but also resisted his attempts to introduce technological advances. Carnegie was also well aware that the threat of a strike, which was fully endorsed by the AFL, could cripple his steel empire if it was carried out effectively. For their part, the Homestead workers, reflecting the attitudes of other steelworkers of the time, believed Carnegie was generally insensitive to their needs. In particular, they were upset that he refused to share the profits of more efficient production techniques.

In July 1892, as his contract with the AFL was about to expire, Carnegie decided to crush the steel workers union. He instructed his general manager, Henry Clay Frick, to announce that the steel mill would now employ non-union workers and pay lower wages. This started a general strike by the Amalgamated, which set up committees to run the strike and prepare the town. Carnegie, who left on vacation for Europe, transferred operational control to Frick, whose hatred of unions was well known. Frick proceeded to employ 300 company guards hired through Pinkerton's National Detective Agency to seize the millworks from the strikers. On July 5, the guards used river barges in an attempt to land near the factory under the cover of night. The strikers were waiting for them and a battle lasted for eight hours. When it was over, 35 men lay dead and 60 others were seriously wounded.

Even before the violent clash, public opinion was running against the strikers through no fault of their own. An agitator named Alexander Berkman had earlier attempted to assassinate Frick in his office. The failed attack brought much sympathy for Frick and significant discredit to the strikers. The news of the deadly confrontation between strikers and Pinkertons further turned opinion against the Amalgamated. Pennsylvania sent 4000 militiamen to occupy the factory, which was soon turned over to management. Nonunion workers were hired and the millwork resumed normal operations. Four months later, the Amalgamated voted to end the strike, but the organization was now crushed, effectively ending unionism in the steel industry. More important, the struggle crippled the AFL and weakened efforts to organize labor throughout the United States.

See also: American Federation of Labor, Andrew Carnegie, Labor Unionism, Pinkerton, Strike