The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union of strikers and a setback for their efforts to unionize steelworkers.
The AA organized the independently-owned Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works in Homestead in 1881. The AA engaged in a bitter strike at the Homestead works on January 1, 1882, in an effort to prevent management from including a non-union clause in the workers' contracts, known as a "yellow-dog contract".
A race war between nonunion black and white workers in the Homestead plant broke out on July 22, 1892. Desperate to find a way to continue the strike, the AA appealed to Whitelaw Reid, the Republican candidate for vice president, on July 16.
Over the course of the 1880s, several unions were broken at other mills and industrial plants around the country, but in 1892 the workers of the Homestead mill were still represented by the powerful Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers.
The strike’s leaders were charged with murder, and others with lesser crimes. None were convicted, but the damage to unionized labor at Homestead had been done. With Amalgamated out of the way, Carnegie slashed wages across the board, implemented a 12-hour workday and cut hundreds of jobs in the years to come.
The Homestead debacle helped turn public opinion against the use of hired help like the Pink ertons in labor disputes, and 26 states passed laws outlawing it in the years following the strike. Carnegie’s own reputation suffered irreparable damage, with critics branding him a hypocrite and a coward for hiding out in Scotland and allowing Frick to do the dirty work.
In what would be one of the deadliest labor-management conflicts in the nation’s history, some 12 people were killed when striking workers attacked 300 Pinkerton detectives hired by the plant’s management as security guards.
The Homestead debacle helped turn public opinion against the use of hired help like the Pinkertons in labor disputes, and 26 states passed laws outlawing it in the years following the strike.
With the union’s three-year contract with Carnegie coming to an end in June 1892, Frick announced pay cuts for hundreds of Homestead workers. After refusing to negotiate with the union, he shuttered the Homestead steel mill on June 29, locking 3,800 workers out. Only around 725 of those workers belonged to Amalgamated, but all of them voted to strike, surprising Frick, who had assumed only union members would strike.
But when Henry Clay Frick, chairman and chief executive of Carnegie Steel, wanted to cut workers’ wages at the plant in Homestead, located near Pittsburgh on the south bank of the Monongahela River, Carnegie supported Frick’s efforts despite his public pro-labor stance. Homestead was one of the most important of Carnegie Steel’s vast network ...
Homestead resumed operations in full by mid-August 1892, thanks to some 1,700 strikebreakers, including some of the state’s first Black steelworkers.
The Homestead Strike took place in Homestead , Pennsylvania. In the 1880s and 1890s Andrew Carnegie had built the Carnegie Steel Company into one of the largest and most-profitable steel companies in the United States. The Homestead steel mill, located a few miles from Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River, was one of the largest of Carnegie’s mills.
The Homestead Strike was a violent labour dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred in 1892 in Homestead , Pennsylvania . The striking workers were all fired on July 2, and on July 6 private security guards hired by the company arrived. The guards and workers exchanged gunfire, and at least three guards and seven workers were killed during the battle and its aftermath.
A gun battle resulted in which a number of Pinkerton agents and strikers were killed and many were injured. In the 1880s and 1890s, Andrew Carnegie had built the Carnegie Steel Company into one of the largest and most-profitable steel companies in the United States.
Frick began by cutting the workers’ wages, which the workers protested by starting the Homestead Strike. In late June Frick locked them out and fenced off the plant. On July 2 he fired all 3,800 workers.
The conflict between the union workers and the strikebreakers, meanwhile, took on racial overtones in the fall of 1892. The union barred African Americans; many of the strikebreakers, therefore, were African Americans brought in from the South.
strike, collective refusal by employees to work under the conditions required by employers. Strikes arise for a number of reasons, though principally in response to economic conditions (defined as an economic strike and meant to improve wages and benefits) or labour practices (intended to improve…
The contract between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union and Carnegie Steel was to expire on July 1, 1892. Andrew Carnegie gave his operations manager, Henry Clay Frick, permission to break the union before this deadline. Frick began by cutting the workers’ wages, which the workers protested by starting the Homestead Strike.
The Homestead strike, also known as the Homestead steel strike, Homestead massacre, or Battle of Homestead was an industrial lockout and strike which began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. The battle was a pivotal event in U.S. labor history.
The AA engaged in a bitter strike at the Homestead works on January 1, 1882, in an effort to prevent management from including a non-union clause in the workers' contracts, known as a " yellow-dog contract ". The violence occurred on both sides, and the plant brought in numerous strikebreakers.
The Bost Building, AA headquarters during the strike and today a National Historic Landmark. De-unionization efforts throughout the Midwest began against the AA in 1897 when Jones and Laughlin Steel refused to sign a contract. By 1900, not a single steel plant in Pennsylvania remained unionized.
The AA strike at the Homestead steel mill in 1892 was different from previous large-scale strikes in American history such as the Great railroad strike of 1877 or the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886. Earlier strikes had been largely leaderless and disorganized mass uprisings of workers.
But all was not well inside the plant. A race war between nonunion black and white workers in the Homestead plant broke out on July 22, 1892.
Carnegie Steel made major technological innovations in the 1880s, especially the installation of the open-hearth system at Homestead in 1886. It now became possible to make steel suitable for structural beams and for armor plate for the United States Navy, which paid far higher prices for the premium product.
The Knights of Labor, which had organized the mechanics and transportation workers at Homestead, agreed to walk out alongside the skilled workers of the AA. Workers at Carnegie plants in Pittsburgh, Duquesne, Union Mills and Beaver Falls struck in sympathy the same day.
The strike at the Homestead became hostile when the Carnegie company brought in guards to fight against the labours.
In what would be one of the deadliest labor-management conflicts in the nation’s history, some 12 people were killed when striking workers attacked 300 Pinkerton detectives hired by the plant’s management as security guards.
The Homestead debacle helped turn public opinion against the use of hired help like the Pinkertons in labor disputes, and 26 states passed laws outlawing it in the years following the strike.
The Homestead debacle helped turn public opinion against the use of hired help like the Pink ertons in labor disputes, and 26 states passed laws outlawing it in the years following the strike. Carnegie’s own reputation suffered irreparable damage, with critics branding him a hypocrite and a coward for hiding out in Scotland and allowing Frick to do the dirty work.
With the union’s three-year contract with Carnegie coming to an end in June 1892, Frick announced pay cuts for hundreds of Homestead workers. After refusing to negotiate with the union, he shuttered the Homestead steel mill on June 29, locking 3,800 workers out. Only around 725 of those workers belonged to Amalgamated, but all of them voted to strike, surprising Frick, who had assumed only union members would strike.
The workers went on strike because their salaries were cut.
Homestead resumed operations in full by mid-August 1892, thanks to some 1,700 strikebreakers, including some of the state’s first Black steelworkers.