DON GONYEA, HOST:
Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago, America's founders signed the Declaration of Independence, launching a quest for life, liberty and happiness. Now, NPR's series America In Pursuit is bringing you stories about how that quest has taken shape. That series brought me to a town in Western Pennsylvania, where steelworkers took on Andrew Carnegie in July of 1892. And for a moment, it looked like they won. But their eventual defeat at the hands of one of the richest men in the world can teach us a lot about America's economy today.
We start just outside Pittsburgh city limits, right between a busy street and the Monongahela River. There sits a small, nondescript brick building. You probably wouldn't even notice it as you drive by, but there's a reason you should.
RON BARAFF: This really is labor's most sacred site in this country.
GONYEA: That's Ron Baraff, director and lead historian at the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Site. He took us inside that brick building, which served as the center of the action and the violence during the Homestead steel strike of 1892.
BARAFF: John Morris, who was one of the workers that was killed, was standing right over by that window there. He stuck his head up to see what was going on, got shot, stumbled backwards and fell down into the pit.
GONYEA: Here's what led to that moment. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie owned Homestead Steel Works, but he found himself butting heads with a small but influential trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The company was demanding a much longer workday, changes to the pay system and disavowal of the union. Baraff says workers refused.
BARAFF: Really, more than anything else, this is about control. How much say does labor have in their own destiny? That's really what they're fighting for.
GONYEA: To help gain control over his workforce, Carnegie had brought in Henry Clay Frick, another well-known industrialist with a history of busting unions. When the labor contract expired, the workers went on strike, and Frick responded. He hired an army of private security - Pinkerton agents - to clear the way for replacement workers. But when the Pinkertons arrived near the mill on barges, workers and community members met them on the banks of the river.
BARAFF: The Amalgamated leaders told the Pinkertons, turn around. Go home. We don't want any trouble. We're not looking for a fight, but this is our mill. Well, commander of the Pinkertons said, no, we're here. We're getting off the boats. And, you know, the old saying goes, no one knows who fired the first shot, but a shot is fired.
GONYEA: In all, seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. And after an hourslong standoff, the Pinkertons retreated. But the union's apparent victory that day was short-lived. At Frick's request, the Pennsylvania governor sent in the state militia to finish what the Pinkertons had started. By November, the union was broken, the workers demoralized. Those involved in organizing the strike - blacklisted. And for those who still had jobs, it was longer hours and brutal working conditions all for lower wages.
For most Americans, Homestead might be a paragraph buried in a high school textbook. Again, it was nearly 134 years ago, but there is a group of locals working to keep this history alive.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Simmer down.
GONYEA: This is the weekly meeting of the Battle of Homestead Foundation. The group meets over breakfast at a local restaurant.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Two eggs...
GONYEA: We attended a recent meeting where the discussion was lively, covering history and current events.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Couple things on unions in the news. There are some registered nurses - 10,000 of them - that have organized.
GONYEA: But we were surprised when one of the regulars, a college professor named Paul Spooner, pointedly asked us why we are revisiting Homestead and not some big union victory? - like, say, the nationwide steelworkers strike in 1946.
PAUL SPOONER: You know, the 1892 strike destroyed and put back the labor movement for 40 years. So why are you looking at 1892 instead of steelworkers union and the longest steel strike in U.S. history?
GONYEA: It's a fair question. There are any number of labor milestones we could have chosen, but others at the breakfast quickly offered opinions as to why Homestead is worth focusing on.
STEFFI DOMIKE: Winning or losing is not the question about whether it was an important strike. It was a - what we call a turning point.
GONYEA: That's Steffi Domike, a co-founder of the group and a retired steelworker.
DOMIKE: Unfortunately, we did not, as labor, have the forces to win because capital in the Gilded Age was so strong.
GONYEA: And today, she says she sees too many echoes of that past. Another attendee chimes in. Her name is Rosemary Trump, no relation to the president. She says the world has changed, but the deck is still stacked in favor of big business.
ROSEMARY TRUMP: Government is siding with business to shut out the 98%. And the lesson of 1892 is, you push people so far, and they are going to rebel, and they are going to do what's necessary to survive and thrive.
GONYEA: Roxanne Brown is the current president of the United Steel Workers Union. She says Homestead taught the movement important lessons about solidarity and political power.
ROXANNE BROWN: Without Homestead, I don't know that we would be here today.
GONYEA: But the journey wasn't easy. It took some 40 years for the labor movement to really recover from the defeat. That's when President Franklin Roosevelt signed a law that gave most private sector workers the right to form unions. Today, total union membership in the U.S. is less than 10% of the workforce. At the same time, though, public support for unions is at the highest it's been since the '60s, according to Gallup Polling. Brown says that's because Americans see the value in organizing in today's economy.
BROWN: Because people are struggling. And people are trying to figure out, how do I pay for a house? How do I afford healthcare? How do I retire in dignity?
GONYEA: While the union share of the workforce has shrunk, it's also diversified. Today, the United Auto Workers represent university graduate assistants. The Teamsters now include doctors, nurses and paramedics. Twenty-five-year-old Dachi Spoltore works as a shift supervisor at a Pittsburgh Starbucks. Their store voted to unionize in 2022.
DACHI SPOLTORE: I think the biggest thing, at least for me, is being able to come in and not worry about whether I'm going to be doing the job of six people on a floor with two other people.
GONYEA: Starbucks has recognized the union, but after years of off and on negotiations, the two sides have yet to agree on a first contract. As a Pittsburgh native and a labor organizer, Spoltore knows all about the Homestead strike. So I asked what they take away from that strike today.
SPOLTORE: It was an example of how persistent and how determined you have to be. And I see that in the fact that people I work with come in and say, well, this sucks, but I'm still here to change it.
GONYEA: We talked to Spoltore in a meeting room at the main branch of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. The irony wasn't lost on us. And in a coda that would have been unimaginable in the Gilded Age, the employees at that library are now members of the United Steelworkers, as are workers at Pittsburgh's Henry Clay Frick Museums.
Don Gonyea, NPR News, Homestead, PA. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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