Battle of Homestead Foundation to commemorate 130th anniversary of bloody steel strike

The Battle of Homestead Foundation will hold a special event on July 6 to commemorate the 130^th anniversary of a deadly confrontation that was part the Homestead Steel strike of 1892.

It’s the first in-person event for the Foundation since the start of the pandemic and will include historians and labor educators offering insights on the legacy of this seminal labor conflict.

“The event will commemorate and celebrate the incredible solidarity of the workers and townspeople, portraying and discussing the kind of environment that existed in Homestead at the time,” said Battle of Homestead Foundation president John Haer. “It was actually a kind of workers’ republic at the time.”

The event will take place from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Pump House on Waterfront Drive in Munhall. The building houses the only remaining fixtures of the Homestead Steel Works that date back to 1892.

It was on July 6, 1892 that striking steel workers at the factory, embroiled in a labor dispute with owner Andrew Carnegie and determined to keep the plant closed, confronted private security agents hired by Carnegie and his chairman Henry Frick to break the strike.

The skilled iron and steel makers were members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, one of the largest unions at the time, according to Haer. When the security men, members of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, crossed the Monongahela to the steel plant before dawn on that day, the workers and some of the townspeople were there to meet them.

The ensuing battle left 12 dead, mostly workers and townspeople along with at least two Pinkerton agents, and hundreds wounded. But on that day the union workers overpowered the security agents sent to quash their efforts.

“The 1892 steel strike was a defining event in America’s ongoing struggle to ensure workplace rights,” said Haer. “Observing the anniversary lets us reflect on the role of organized labor in fighting the extreme economic inequality endangering our nation in 2022.”

Battle of Homestead Foundation board member Rosemary Trump said the Homestead Steel Strike was ultimately a disaster for the workers.

“They won the battle but they lost the war,” she said. “Had the (state) militia not intervened with hired soldiers from Philadelphia, I believe that we would have a whole different society today and a whole different workplace where workers would be earning living wages. That’s my opinion.”

Haer believes if the strikers had prevailed there would have been shared power with management.

“It set a benchmark in history where the industrialists were essentially given cart blanche to do what they wanted and see their employees as property, as opposed to having a legal right to negotiate and have a voice in the terms and conditions of their work,” he said.