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Significance of the 1892 Battle of Homestead On
July 6, 1892, on the banks of the Monongahela River in Homestead,
Pennsylvania, there occurred perhaps the most dramatic and significant
event in American labor history. The
event was certainly dramatic. The invading Pinkerton agents, the
aroused town and workers, the bloody confrontation, the burning of the
barges, the gauntlet of women and children, the military occupation of
the town, the failed assassination attempts on the company's chairman,
the trials of strike leaders and the suppression of the union. The
battle of Homestead stands as the best known, best documented, and
most compelling story in the long history of the struggle between
labor and capital in the United States of America. The
battle also marked a watershed in American labor relations, a defining
moment, where issues that are still relevant to the organization of
work in the global economy were posed in particularly stark terms. The
first issue was whether people could freely associate in the
workplace, form organizations of their own choosing, and speak freely
about the employment relationship. After the battle, free speech and
association virtually disappeared in the community of Homestead, as
well as on the job in the mill, for more than forty years. The
second issue relates to the right of workers to freely choose their
own representatives in discussions and negotiations with employers, to
collectively bargain over wages, hours, and working conditions without
fear of retaliation. Finally,
Homestead workers demanded the fight to participate in the process of
workplace change. A key issue for the workers at Homestead, as it is
for workers today, was the pace and impact of technological change.
Workers in Europe in the 1990s increasingly have a legal fight to be
consulted and involved in decisions as their jobs are impacted by
technology. Such participation existed in the Homestead plant from
1889-1892. After the battle, workers at Homestead and in American
industry lost the fight to be consulted over the organization of their
work. Fundamental
human rights to association, representation, and participation in the
workplace are still problematic in the US despite their assertion
fifty years ago by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Homestead 1892 stands as an event that crystallizes, in
stark and dramatic expression, issues that retain their relevance for
America and the world on the threshold of the 21st Century. Charles
McCollester
President
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