Editing Homestead strike (section)

==Plans of Carnegie and Frick==
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 | image1 = Andrew Carnagie 1893 from A Complete History of the Struggle of July, 1892, between the.jpg
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 | footer = Andrew Carnegie ''(left)'' and Henry Clay Frick pictured in {{circa}} 1893
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[[Andrew Carnegie]] placed industrialist [[Henry Clay Frick]] in charge of his company's operations in 1881. Frick resolved to break the union at Homestead. "The mills have never been able to turn out the product they should, owing to being held back by the Amalgamated men," he complained in a letter to Carnegie.<ref>Quoted in George Harvey, ''Henry Clay Frick: The Man'' (New York: Beard Books, 1928; reprinted 2002), p. 177. {{ISBN|1-58798-127-0}}</ref>

Carnegie was publicly in favor of labor unions. He condemned the use of strikebreakers and told associates that no steel mill was worth a single drop of blood.<ref name="Standiford2005">{{cite book|last=Standiford|first=Les|title=Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America|url=https://archive.org/details/meetyouinhell00less|url-access=registration|access-date=26 May 2013|year= 2005|publisher=Crown Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-23837-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/meetyouinhell00less/page/161 161]}}</ref> But Carnegie agreed with Frick's desire to break the union and "reorganize the whole affair, and ... exact good reasons for employing every man. Far too many men required by Amalgamated rules."<ref>Quoted in James H. Bridge, ''The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company'' (New York: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1903; rev. ed. 1992), p. 206. {{ISBN|0-405-04112-8}}</ref> Carnegie ordered the Homestead plant to manufacture large amounts of inventory so the plant could weather a strike. He also drafted a notice (which Frick never released) withdrawing recognition of the union.<ref>Carnegie, a pacifist, purposefully avoided the moral dilemmas raised by the Homestead strike by beginning a European vacation before the strike began. When questioned in Scotland about Frick's actions, Carnegie washed his hands of any responsibility and declared that Frick was in charge. Brody argues that Carnegie felt Frick was doing the right thing by bringing in strikebreakers and busting the union, but Frick was doing a poor job of it. See Brody, p. 59 fn. 18</ref>

With the collective bargaining agreement due to expire on June 30, 1892, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with a 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit. Carnegie encouraged Frick to use the negotiations to break the union: "...the Firm has decided that the minority must give way to the majority. These works, therefore, will be necessarily non-union after the expiration of the present agreement."<ref>Letter from Carnegie to Frick dated April 4, 1892, quoted in Foner, p. 207.</ref>  Carnegie believed that the Amalgamated was a hindrance to efficiency; furthermore it was not representative of the workers.  It admitted only a small group of skilled workers. It was in its own way an elitist, discriminatory organization that was not worthy of the republic, Carnegie felt.<ref>Krass p 277</ref>
[[File:Frick to Carnegie letter about the arming of the Pinkertons.jpg|thumb|left|upright=2.0|Portion of the typed and signed copy of the letter sent to Andrew Carnegie describing the plans and munitions that would be on the barges when the Pinkertons arrived to confront the strikers in Homestead.|alt=Sepia colored letter]]
Frick announced on April 30, 1892, that he would bargain for 29 more days. If no contract was reached, Carnegie Steel would cease to recognize the union. Carnegie formally approved Frick's tactics on May 4. Then Frick offered a slightly better wage scale and advised the superintendent to tell the workers, "We do not care whether a man belongs to a union or not, nor do we wish to interfere. He may belong to as many unions or organizations as he chooses, but we think our employees at Homestead Steel Works would fare much better working under the system in vogue at Edgar Thomson and Duquesne."<ref>Quoted in Krass p. 278; Krause, pp. 284–310, contains the best discussion of the bargaining timeline and exchange of proposals.</ref>

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