Homestead Strike Timeline
Where: Homestead,
Pennsylvania
Union: Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers
Company:
Carnegie Steel Company
1876:
Amalgamated Association, union for iron and
steel workers, forms.
1881:
Carnegie put Frick in charge of the
Homestead factory.
1882 and 1889:
Amalgamated Association won two big strikes
against the Carnegie Company. After 1889, the union became very powerful and
organized. They had a very strong union contract.
February 1892:
Amalgamated Association asked for a wage
increase. Frick responded with a wage decrease.
June 29, 1892:
The old contract expired without the two
sides reaching an agreement. Frick locked the workers out of the plant, using a
high fence topped with barbed wire.
June 30, 1892:
Workers decided to strike and they
surrounded the plant to make sure that no strikebreakers would enter.
July 6,1892:
After the local sheriff was unable to
control the strikers, Frick hired guards from the National Pinkerton Detective
Agency to secure the factory so that strikebreakers could enter.
The Pinkertons arrived by boat in the
middle of the night, hoping to surround the factory unnoticed.
The strikers knew they were coming. Shots
were fired and people killed on both sides.
Document A:
Emma Goldman (Modified)
It was May 1892.
Trouble had broken out between the Carnegie Steel Company and its workers,
organized in the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Amalgamated
Association was one of the biggest and most efficient unions in the country,
consisting mostly of strong Americans, men of decision and grit, who stood up
for their rights. The Carnegie Company, on the other hand, was a powerful
corporation. Andrew Carnegie, its president, had turned over management to
Henry Clay Frick, a man known for his hatred of unions and workers.
The Carnegie
Company enjoyed great wealth and prosperity. Wages were arranged between the
company and the union, according to a sliding scale based on the current market
price of steel products.
Andrew Carnegie
decided to abolish the sliding scale. The company would make no more agreements
with the Amalgamated Association. In fact, he would not recognize the union at
all. Then, he closed the mills. It was an open declaration of war.
The steel-workers
declared that they were ready to take up the challenge of Frick: they would
insist on their right to organize and to deal collectively with their
employers. Their tone was manly, ringing with the spirit of their rebellious
forebears of the Revolutionary War.
Then the news
flashed across the country of the slaughter of steel- workers by Pinkertons. In
the dead of night, Frick sent a boat packed with strike-breakers and heavily
armed Pinkerton thugs to the mill. The workers stationed themselves along the
shore, determined to drive back Frick’s hirelings. When the boat got within
range, the Pinkertons had opened fire, without warning, killing a number of
Homestead men on the shore, among them a little boy, and wounding scores of
others.
Source: Emma Goldman was political activist and
radical who fiercely supported workers’ rights. The document above comes from
her autobiography, written in 1931, where she remembers her reaction to the
Homestead strike, thirty-nine years later.
Document B:
Henry Frick
I can say as
clearly as possible that under no circumstances will we have any further
dealings with the Amalgamated Association as an organization. This is final.
The workmen in the
Amalgamated Association work under what is known as a sliding scale. As the
price of steel rises, the earnings of the men also rise; as the prices fall,
their wages also fall. The wages are not allowed to fall below a certain
amount, which is called the minimum. Until now, the minimum has been $25 per
ton of steel produced. We have recently changed the minimum to $23 instead of
$25. We believe this is reasonable because the Carnegie Company has spent a lot
of money on new machinery that allows workers to increase their daily output,
and therefore increase their earnings. The Amalgamated Association was
unwilling to consider a minimum below $24, even though the improved machinery
would enable workers to earn more. We found it impossible to arrive at any
agreement with the Amalgamated Association, so we decided to close our works at
Homestead.
The Amalgamated
men surrounded our property and blocked all of the entrances and all roads
leading to Homestead. We felt that for the safety of our property, it was
necessary for us to hire our own guards to assist the sheriff.
We brought our
guards here as quietly as possible; had them taken to Homestead at an hour of
the night when we hoped to have them enter without any interference whatever
and without meeting anybody. All our efforts were to prevent the possibilities
of a confrontation between the Amalgamated Association and our guards.
We have
investigated and learned that the Amalgamated men and their friends fired on
our guards for twenty-five minutes before they reached our property, and then
again after they had reached our property. Our guards did not return the fire
until after the boats had touched the shore, and after three of our guards had
been wounded, one fatally.
Source: In this newspaper interview in the Pittsburgh Post on July 8, 1892, Frick explains his opposition to
the union’s demands.
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