This essay adopts the first-person voice of a Homestead steelworker during the 1892 labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and Carnegie Steel Company. Written as a persuasive call to action, it examines management's refusal to negotiate in good faith, the proposed wage cuts, and the threat to the union's existence. Drawing on historical sources and contemporary labor arguments, the essay urges both skilled and unskilled workers — including Eastern European immigrants — to stand together in a strike against the exploitative practices of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick.
Carnegie Steel Company is one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, and its success is largely dependent upon the workers who produce the finest steel anywhere. It is not Andrew Carnegie, or his subordinate Henry Frick, who toil under difficult conditions — enduring intense heat and compounded 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 comfort, 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 this company, and we deserve more than to be used and discarded as though we are just another piece of machinery. Not only are we an instrumental part of the factory — we are the most important aspect of the manufacturing process. Carnegie and Frick are attempting to force us to return to a time when workers were nothing more than replaceable parts in the engine of commerce.
The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers currently represents several hundred workers in the Carnegie Steel plant here in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and the contract that has protected those workers from the predations of 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 — departs for Europe on 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, ongoing for some time, have not been negotiations so much as ultimatums delivered 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 1,600 men, "two thirds of them unskilled day laborers," but all workers must stand together to protect the rights of all. (Nasaw 363) 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 the company openly regards as dispensable? Unskilled workers are paid by the day and earn just fourteen cents an hour. Does anyone believe that if unionized workers have their pay cut, the unskilled non-union workers will not be next? What will happen to the poor day laborers — mostly Eastern European immigrants who know little of American labor rights and the protections that have been hard won over decades of struggle?
"Record profits contrast with demands for worker wage cuts"
"Strike justified by past successes and worker solidarity"
"Final appeal for unified strike action by all workers"
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