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Chapter 5. Labor Issues and Labor Organization
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Chapter 5 Labor Issues and Labor Organization Labor and management during much of the early days of corporate growth in both the steel and coal industries seldom were at ease with one another. This was especially true among the builders of massive enterprises such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, both of whom historian Matthew Josephson called “robber barons.” “In introducing technical economies, in adjusting wages, in the hiring or firing of their workers,” said Josephson, “the barons exercised their sacred rights over colossal properties in a manner which closely paralleled the ‘Divine Right’ of feudal princes.”1 Industrial workers of the late 1800s were beginning a slow but steady drift toward labor organizations or unions that could serve as agents of collective bargaining with employers. Most employers—Carnegie and Frick in particular—resisted attempts to negotiate with any union representatives , choosing instead either to fire employees connected with the unions or, in more dramatic fashion, to lock out employees by closing entire plants for the duration of a labor dispute. Employees were left with two alternatives: give in and return to work or strike. But the success of any strike required a strong union, representing as many workers as possible, that could bring strength in numbers to the bargaining table. There was a middle ground toward representation in the form of company unions. These gave workers the opportunity to discuss workplace concerns with management but never to make demands. Company unions obviously could never engage in collective bargaining.2 Henry Clay Frick was perhaps the most ardent opponent of unions. Numerous strikes among coal and coke workers at the H. C. Frick works during the 1880s and 1890s had erupted into violence. Long periods of shutdowns at the works showed how loss of production at the coal mines could affect steel production in the same way that a slowdown or lockout at steel plants affected coal production.3 One of the most serious strikes against Frick occurred in February 1891, when 10,000 coal and coke workers walked off the job at Connellsville over low wages. When several of the strikers attacked guards stationed at the coke works, seven of the strikers were killed and many more were wounded. Henry Frick, 50 Labor Issues and Labor Organization though, at the urging of Andrew Carnegie, refused to give in to workers’ demands. Frick hired a hundred Pinkerton agents to secure his property and then waited. By late May the strike ended when workers agreed to return to their jobs without winning any wage concessions. Little more than a year later, in late June 1892, Frick and Carnegie utilized the same tactic when workers, led by officials of the fledgling Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, went on strike for higher wages and a reduction in the twelve-hour-day, seven-days-perweek work schedule at Carnegie’s Homestead plant. Pinkerton agents once again were employed to guard the Carnegie property. The ensuing violence was more vicious than at Connellsville, and the loss of life was greater on both sides. The strike dragged on until November 21, 1892. With little money left to live on, and the cold winter months fast approaching, Homestead strikers voted to return to work. Once more, Carnegie had made no concessions. One of the ironies of the situation was that steel orders for 1892 had declined to such an extent that closure of the Homestead plant caused minimal financial loss to Carnegie Steel. The Homestead strike’s aftermath was a major blow to steelworkers . The only union of consequence that represented them now was discredited . Wages remained the same as before the strike. The workday and workweek hours remained the same as before. And more and more European immigrants were hired for unskilled positions at Carnegie steel plants. Even before the strike a distinct ethnic division had begun appearing at the plants. “The skilled workers were native-born or firstor second-generation Germans, Irish, Welsh, or Scotsmen. The unskilled day laborers were almost all Eastern Europeans, mostly Slovak, though they were referred to as ‘Hungarians,’ ‘Huns,’ and ‘Hunkies.’”4 These, then, were the labor conditions in the plants that U.S. Steel gained ownership of in 1901. They “presented the officers of the new corporation with both an immediate practical problem and a longer-ranged project in labor reform and public relations,” said Gerald G. Eggert.5 Critical to the new corporation’s ability to steer its way through the thorny issues that lay...