The Pros And Cons Of The Homestead Strike

The Homestead Strike was a very violent, but important event to the people of the American Business Industry. The violent act of a desperate businessman, in attempt to retain peace, killed many men. The infamous story of the Pinkertons changed the ways of American business agreements. The Homestead Strike changed the traditional American business environment by creating new laws and the awareness of the need for peace in business world.

But, even though Pullman didn’t make any changes, the strike influenced that way the public viewed worker’s rights and the role of management and mediation of labor unions. Before government intervention, the public’s opinion about supporting the strike was split. The western and southern part of America generally supported the strike while the east generally opposed it (H.W.). But people began to question the amount of control of the government after President Cleveland sent in troops to shut down the strikes. 30 died and 57 were injured (Lawrence). Using military forces to union bust was a milestone in American history. Besides the Homestead strike two years earlier, the Pullman strike was first to be shut down violently by the military (Levitt). After these event, public opinion changed. The majority did not support the government and Pullman, and when Pullman died in 1897, people were said to have desecrated his body

Everyone was frustrated with work conditions and this led to the formations of unions around the country. The Knights of Labor was a very popular union that led the first major strike in the United States. The year was 1885 and Jay Gould’s Missouri Pacific Railroad was the target. The owner, Jay Gould, had recently cut wages drastically and fired union members. The Knights led the strike and eventually succeeded to improve wages for the railroad workers. With this great accomplishment the Knights gained

Overall, in the 1900s workdays were long, pay was small and workers were worked hard. Now, work days are shortened, the pay is higher, and working conditions are much more ideal.

According to Les Standiford from scotsman.com, “Carnegie had his plant manager post a notice that the works would close for an indefinite period and that 1,600 men would be put out of work with the stated reason being plant renovation. But Carnegie had resolved that the real purpose was to drive out the unions, only non-union men would be rehired when they reopened the plant. By February of 1885, with the men facing starvation and freezing temperatures and no money to buy food or coal, they agreed to come back in under individual contracts, their wages decreased by up to 33%. The union was crushed forever at the plant."[3]. This quote directly shows the ruthless nature Carnegie had when it came to his business, despite his good views on life and spending money, and even agreeing with workers unions, he does not want them to get into his factories and increase the prices it cost him to pay is workers. He was willing to put off thousands of workers in the dead of winter with them unable to afford food or proper heating due to the lack of work, just so that he could prevent costs of labor increasing. Another similar case was when Carnegie attempted to avoid harming his public image while dealing with protests, according to learningtogive.net, “While expanding his steel empire, Carnegie ran into a series of labor relation problems with Homestead Works, a rival steel mill with the most modern equipment and technology available that he had purchased. The problems began when the workers organized a strike. Carnegie instructed his associate, Howard Frick, to handle the situation however he deemed necessary. Because Carnegie was seen as a friend of the worker and usually handled similar situations by

The Amalgamated finally called for a strike when Frick announced another wage cut and gave the union two days to accept it. In response to the strike, Frick shit down the plant and called in guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency (well-known strikebreakers) to enable the company to hire nonunion workers. The mere presence of the hated Pinkertons was enough to incite the workers to violence. As the Pinkertons approached the Homestead plant by river, strikers prepared for them by pouring oil on the water and setting it on fire and meeting the guards at the docks with guns and dynamite. The Pinkertons surrendered after several hours of pitched battle that left three guards and ten strikers dead, but the workers' victory was temporary. 8,000 National Guard troops were called in to protect the strikebreakers and production in the plant resumed. Public opinion turned completely against the strikers when a radical attempted to assassinate Frick. Defeated, strikers slowly drifted back to their jobs until Amalgamated had no choice but to surrender. Amalgamated membership shrank from 24,000 to 7,000, a decline symbolic of the general erosion of union strength as factory laborers became increasingly unskilled, and so increasingly easy to replace.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 manifested into the first of a series of labor strikes in the United States and the first general strike of the nation. Working on the railroads, labor workers already had poor working conditions and low wages. However, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) had made its second wage cut in the past eight months; both cuts by ten percent. In response to this, labor workers refused to allow any freight trains to roll in and out of the station until the restoration of their original wages. The railroad strikers included individuals from railroad workers to other labor sympathizers alike. The Great Strike of 1877 succeeded for the labor economy because of the large number of labor supporters, the overpowering of the militia, and the power of initiative from the people.

The chief political issue of the late 1800s was working conditions for laborers. Big businesses, having sought to cut costs however possible, created horrible working conditions for laborers. In an effort to improve these conditions, workers waged strikes and formed labor unions, so that they might gain some semblance of bargaining power. However the fight to improve conditions for workers was largely ineffective thanks to public support of big business, disorganization amongst labor unions, and the negative connotation that came to be associated with labor unions.

Despite being able to cause a small improvement in workers’ pay and hours, labor unions ultimately died out by the 1900s due to their methods. Unable to truly focus on the plight of skilled workers, most labor unions instead focused on that of unskilled workers, pushing aside the skilled workers. (Doc D). The actions of labor unions ended up being counterproductive, forcing companies to wage war against the labor unions. These stricter contracts such as that of Western Union Telegraph Company, forced workers to affiliate themselves against labor unions. (Doc E) One important thing to note is that the workers’ rights advocates were never able to coincide on one factor. As evidenced in an illustration in 1887, labor unions had to compete with other movements such as socialism, anarchism, and other labor unions. (Doc F). Because of this, the media, although recognizing the labor union movement, began viewing the labor unions as dangerous entities. Although the initial strikes such as the Wabash strike were successful, the ones that followed proved detrimental to the movement, and caused the steady decline of the labor unions. Because some of the strikes were dangerous, many strikes resulted in the deaths of those involved, such as the Homestead Crisis, and Pinkerton (Doc G). Combined with events such as the Wildcat strike, Haymarket strike, the Pullman Strike, the public began to associate a negative

Homestead lockout- many workers got locked out of the union and lost their jobs this was often violent

In the late eighteen hundreds, machines started to take place of people in industries. Work became unskilled labor, or labor that requires zero to little experience. Not soon after, the economy crashed and left millions out of work. Workers who got to continue working had their wages cut. By 1877, railway workers had enough of the wage inequity and went on strike. This was known as the Great Railroad Strike. From Pennsylvania to California, railroad systems had workers leave their posts. Not long after the strikes, state governments started calling for Federal troops to take down the activity. Though the majority of the middle class agreed with the strikers motivations and reasoning, they were disappointed in the damage that occurred.

Carnegie was quoted as saying that Frick was a master at management. Indeed, when competition in the field came up, Frick started a rumor mill that put their competitors out of business within a year, allowing Carnegie to acquire their mill. However, this ruthlessness was later directed against Carnegie himself. Following the increasingly violent workers strikes in 1886, Carnegie let his opinion on the matter be heard through essays that reaffirmed how important he felt labor was and encouraging the formation of union organizations for the various workers. Several industry leaders were unhappy with this as they saw it as a way in which they would lose control of their own company’s running. Frick was one of these leaders. Thus began the tension between the two. Furthermore, Carnegie painted himself as a benevolent employer that understood union plights, while covertly bringing his workers to heel through empty promises, while leaving Frick out to be seen as the ruthless stingy partner in the business. Frick, who had always had a hard stance against strikes and unions, was forced to work with them against his will by Carnegie’s majority shares in Frick’s company. Furthermore, Carnegie pretended to allow unions, then slowly, in the years following his essays supporting them, convinced and cajoled them out of existence within his own company besides

Disharmony among unions, violence created by the laborers, and the negative perceptions and associations gained by those actions were not the only crippling factors; the outside forces of the employer and government also proved to be detrimental to the labor movement. In the case of the Homestead Strike, which was caused by Henry Clay Frick’s nearly twenty percent cut in wages in 1892, Pinkerton detectives were hired to put an end to the development that arose. However, Frick’s arriving guests were met by his striking employees, resulting in multiple deaths (Document G); despite this attempt of resistance, the strike ended after five months, creating a huge setback in the steel industries’ labor movements. Frick’s tactics were not uncommon; other popular weapons employers used included lockouts, closing a particular factory before a suspected movement was put together; blacklists, which included the names of workers who were associated with unions and would be passed about employers; and yellow-dog contracts, which prevented employees from joining unions while they were working for a company (Document E). One particular tactic was secured by a Supreme Court case in 1895, In re Debs, which was a result of

It started because Carnegie wanted to eliminate the unions in his mills, but Frick supported actions that setback the labor movement for decades. The Homestead Works strike didn’t look good for Carnegie because of the death and violence, which had happened, and he tried to avoid any connections with him. The two kept disputing each other which led to Frick resigning form the company in 1899(Warren, 1996).

The American Federation of Labor was successfully able to negotiate wage increases for its members and enhance workplace safety for all workers. American Federation of Labor was more successful than the Knights of Labor because they used new organizational methods to manage the combined attack of employers and government authorities. American Federation of Labor would also secure the loyalty of its 1.4 million members by providing sickness, unemployment, and strike benefits, and burial insurance. American Federation of Labor emphasized higher wages, shorter working hours, and better working conditions. Employers continued to resist the union’s negotiations by employing immigrants that they could give lower wages to and attempting to speed up labor processes with new forms of organization. The unions within the American Federation of Labor knew that if they had more control of the labor market they would have the power. So the unions decided that limiting the number of available workers would keep their wages high. In 1892, the supervisor of the Carnegie Steel’s huge homestead complex, locked out his employees and said he would operate the plant with nonunion workers. In retaliation the workers surrounded the plant, the supervisor called in 300 armed Pinkerton guards which cause a 24 hour battle outside the plant. The supervisor requested the state