Gunfire broke out between the men on the barge and the workers on land. When Frick plotted to sneak in 300 Pinkerton agents on river barges before dawn on July 6, word spread across town as they were arriving and thousands of workers and their families rushed to the river to keep them out. He hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was notorious for such activities as infiltrating its agents into unions and breaking strikes-and which at its height had a larger work force than the entire U.S. They were "establishing pickets on eight-hour shifts, river patrols and a signaling system," according to McCollester.įrick did what plenty of 19th-century businessmen did when they were battling unions.
Meanwhile, the workers organized the town on a military basis. Management was determined to provoke a strike. Their company advertised widely for strikebreakers and built a 10-foot-high fence around the plant that was topped by barbed wire. The local newspaper pointed out that "it was not so much a question of disagreement as to wages, but a design upon labor organization."Ĭarnegie and Frick made little effort to hide what they had in mind. During the contract negotiations, management didn't make proposals to negotiate. "The mills have never been able to turn out the product they should, owing to being held back by the Amalgamated men," Frick complained to Carnegie.Įven more galling for them was that, as Pittsburghlabor historian Charles McCollester later wrote in The Point of Pittsburgh, "The skilled production workers at Homestead enjoyed wages significantly higher than at any other mill in the country."įirst, as the union's three-year contract was coming to an end in 1892, the company demanded wage cuts for 325 employees, even though the workers had already taken large pay cuts three years before. was making massive profits-a record $4.5 million just before the 1892 confrontation, which led Carnegie himself to exclaim, "Was there ever such a business!" But he and his chairman, Henry Frick, were furious workers had a voice with the union. Homestead's management, with millionaire Andrew Carnegie as owner, was determined to lower its costs of production by breaking the union.Ĭarnegie Steel Co.
The skilled workers at the steel mills in Homestead, seven miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh, were members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers who had bargained exceptionally good wages and work rules. history, leaving scars that have never fully healed after five generations. The 1892 Homestead strike in Pennsylvania and the ensuing bloody battle instigated by the steel plant's management remain a transformational moment in U.S.
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