Homestead 1892

Homestead Strike Carnegie Steel Co. is one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world and it's success is largely dependent upon the workers who manufacture the best steel anywhere. It is not Andrew Carnegie, or his lapdog Henry Frick, who toil in the difficult conditions with intense heat and compounded by dangers that would make those men cringe. It is the worker who risks his life so that men like Carnegie and Frick can sit in the lap of luxury enjoying the fruits of other men's labor.

The owners may have invested their money, but we the workers invest our lives and souls into the company and deserve more than to be used and discarded as though we're just another piece of machinery. Not only are the we an instrumental part of the factory, we are the most important aspect of the manufacturing process and Carnegie and Frick are attempting to force us to return to a time when they were nothing more than replaceable parts in the engine of commerce.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers Union currently represents several hundred workers in the Carnegie Steel plant here in Homestead Pennsylvania and the contract that has protected the workers from the predations of the nefarious Frick for the past three years is coming to an end.

As the cowardly Carnegie, who has in the past claimed that he supports the rights of his workers to organize, skips off to Europe for his annual vacation, paid for by the sweat and toil of his loyal workers, he has left Frick behind to break the Union. The negotiations on the new contract, that have been ongoing for some time, have not been so much as negotiations as they have been ultimatums put to the union by management.

Even the local press has recognized that Carnegie Steel's negotiation tactics are "not so much a question of disagreement as to wages, but a design upon labor organization."("1892 Homestead Strike") Carnegie Steel employs about 1600 men, "two thirds of them unskilled day laborers," but all workers must stand together to protect the rights of all.

(Nasaw 363) And if the Union is destroyed by management and the skilled workers are left to the mercy of the greedy owners, what do you think will happen to those who the company openly advertises as dispensable? After all, unskilled workers are paid by the day an earn just fourteen cents an hour.

Does anyone believe that if the Unionized workers have their pay cut the unskilled non-Union workers won't be next? What will happen to the poor day laborers, mostly poor Eastern European immigrants who know nothing of American fairness and labor rights? The ownership and management of this company have used the current downturn in steel prices as an excuse to break the Union and cut wages.

While everyone knows that in a capitalist economy prices fluctuate and profits cannot always be enormous, but do the workers have to pay so that the Carnegie can maintain his lavish income? After all, Carnegie Steel recently posted a record $4.5 million profit and he now wants to cut wages for people who barely make enough to support their families.

("1892 Homestead Strike") How can workers survive if their pay is cut by the fifteen percent that the company is demanding? ("The 1892 Battle of Homestead") They cannot, and so the only thing an honest hard-working person can do is to strike against the inequitable and dishonest practices on the part of Carnegie Steel. A strike is not the preferred method of dealing with labor disputes, in fact it is a method of last resort.

But the management of Carnegie Steel have refused to negotiate in good faith and have told the Union that its workers must take a pay cut or face the closure of the plant. But if we the workers, and this means all the workers, stand together, the greed of the owners will be their Achilles Heal. If the plant closes there will be no profits for the owners to satisfy themselves.

And we must remember that in the past when strikes were threatened "against other Carnegie plants, its subsidiary, the H.C. Frick Coke Company, and the railroads handling Carnegie products, the company backed down and signed a three-year contract…" (Brecher 2013) We must also not forget that the massive public support forced government to refuse to take action and leave the company on its own to deal with the Union.

There is no reason to believe that this time will be any different and if we stand together we can force the company to make the type of concessions that will protect the Union and the workers. But.