U.S. Steel Recognition Strike of 1901

The U.S. Steel Recognition Strike of 1901 was an attempt by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (the AA) to reverse its declining fortunes and organize large numbers of new members. The strike failed.

The AA had formed in 1876. It was a labor union of skilled iron and steel workers which was deeply committed to craft unionism. However, technological advances had reduced the number of skilled workers in both industries.

In 1892, the AA had lost a bitter strike at the Carnegie Steel Company's steel mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The Homestead strike, which culminated with a day-long gun battle on July 6 that left 12 dead and dozens wounded, led to a wave of de-unionization. From a high of more than 24,000 members in 1892, union membership had sunk to less than 8,000 by 1900.

The AA looked for growth in the tin industry, which still required skilled workers. By 1900, the union had organized 75 percent of the sheet metal mills and all but one of the tin mills in the country.

But the AA seriously misjudged both the economics and the technology underlying the tin industry. The formation of the American Tin Plate Company, a monopoly trust, on December 14, 1898, brought a number of nonunion plants into the union facilities of the American Tinplate Company. Daniel G. Reid, primary owner of the tin plate trust, agreed to recognize the AA at the nonunion plants after a token strike in 1899. The formation in March 1900 of the American Sheet Steel Company, another trust, also brought a number of nonunion plants together with unionized facilities. But this time the company refused to recognize the AA in the nonunion plants. Instead, the American Sheet Steel Co. idled its union facilities while keeping its nonunion works running at full speed.

The AA attempted to counteract the power of the trusts by amending its constitution. A clause was added which required every mill in a trust to strike if even one mill in the trust struck.

The formation of the U.S. Steel trust in 1901 threatened the AA with ruin. U.S. Steel not only combined Elbert Gary and J.P. Morgan's Federal Steel with Andrew Carnegie's steel operations, it also incorporated the plants of the American Tin Plate Co. The AA was confronted with a crisis: It had to organize the plants of U.S. Steel before the corporation, with its relatively infinite resources, could stop the union drives. But the executive committee of U.S. Steel was equally aware of the threat the AA posed, and the company's board of directors secretly adopted a resolution on June 17, 1901, opposing any unionization attempt. U.S. Steel's Tin Plate subsidiary reneged on promises to recognize the AA on the grounds that the union had not won contracts at every plant owned by the American Sheet Steel Co. Sheet Steel executives, meanwhile, refused not only to not recognize the union at its nonunion plants but also began withdrawing recognition and refusing to bargain at its unionized plants.

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