Strikers were happy to ferry them back to Pittsburgh in Edna. The town sheriff failed to raise a force large enough that was willing to fight against their fellow townspeople. The union enlisted a paddle steamer, named Edna, to help, as well as an armada of smaller ships controlled by strikers. 1000 picketers blocked 11 deputy sheriffs from entering the town. They took over the town’s utilities, and had a picket line over 100 employees patrolling the river for incoming ships. Workers quickly got to work setting up elaborate communication systems and modes of organization. 3,000 voted almost unanimously to strike. While the AA represented just 750 of the plant’s 3,800 workers, they asked for support from all employees. It formed an Advisory Committee with five representatives from each of the union’s 8 lodges. The AA called an emergency meeting to deal with the layoffs and the plant’s closure. By July 2nd, the entire workforce-union and non-union-of the Homestead Plant was laid off. On June 30th, the contract between Carnegie Steel and the Union had expired and the entire plant was shut down. The next day, after management and the union had failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement, he closed workers off to the remainder of the plant. On June 28th, he locked workers, mostly the skilled workers represented by the union, out of the plate mill and one furnace. Using this show as an excuse, Frick ordered the erection of a 12-foot high, 3-mile long, barbwire-topped cement barricade around the plant. In retaliation for the wage cut, workers in and out of the union hanged effigies of Frick and the plant’s superintendent J.A. Shortly thereafter, he also announced wage cuts for 325 employees. Following his word, on June 25th, Frick announced that he would no longer negotiate with the union. In mid-June, Frick issued a statement claiming that if the two sides did not come to an agreement by June 24th, he would deal only with workers “as individuals,” not as members of the union’s collective bargaining bloc. Negotiations leading up to the contract’s end were tense. In advance, Carnegie amplified the Homestead plant’s production and left for an extended vacation in Scotland, leaving Frick, who lacked Carnegie’s benevolent reputation towards labor, in charge. The contract employees had pressured the company to sign in 1889 was set to expire on June 30th. In January of 1892, Carnegie Steel proposed an 18% wage reduction as part of a new pay scale. While Carnegie supported the unions publicly, he agreed to Frick’s desire to break them. Three years later, in the winter of 1892, Andrew Carnegie, who had reluctantly negotiated the earlier settlement with workers, was in Europe and Henry Clay Frick-now head of the plant-sought to revoke sliding scale payment and cut wages as the cost of living rose. It also officially recognized the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, or AA, as the representative craft union for the plant and introduced the union as a powerful force in the operation of the plant. This set up a correlation between wages and the company’s profits. In 1889, workers at the Carnegie Company’s Homestead Works on the Monongahela River southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania forced the company to pay workers according to a sliding scale corresponding to the price of steel.
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