Know your Pittsburgh labor history? 6 pivotal worker-management clashes

Technical.ly partnered with PublicSource to explore the landscape of work in Pittsburgh — famed for its industriousness and intense union-management conflict and collaboration — as it is pressure-tested by changes in governmental policy, technology and economics.

Known as a working-class city and a union town, Pittsburgh has a history of labor organizing and even militancy that is indisputably tied to the city’s past status as a steel and manufacturing hub. 

After the fall of the steel industry in the 1980s, the labor movement in the region generally declined. Since then, recent efforts  — including the longest ongoing strike in the country — have reenergized Pittsburgh’s storied labor history.

Changes to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), made by the new Trump administration, create uncertainty for labor organizing efforts in Pittsburgh and across the nation in the immediate future. Looking back at some of the city’s biggest labor moments reveals many ups and downs, and shows why the Pittsburgh area is still upheld as an iconic place in labor activism.

The six events below span 75 years of Pittsburgh history, starting in 1877. Ryan Henderson, interpretive specialist at Rivers of Steel, said this era involved a lot of “active, direct confrontation” between the working class and the owning class. These conflicts often became violent and even fatal. 

The contention that Pittsburgh sits at the apex of US labor history isn’t universally shared. Local activist Mel Packer said people’s pride in Pittsburgh as a union town is “phony” and is perhaps inflated by the local steel industry’s contributions during World War II.

Henderson said he understood where Packer was coming from, agreeing that Pittsburgh’s contributions to the labor movement shouldn’t be placed above others. 

“But I really do think Pittsburgh can be held up as a major force in unionism and labor throughout this period,” Henderson said. “There’s so many sites in Pittsburgh associated with these major labor struggles.”

1877 Rail Strike

In what became known to historians as the “great upheaval,” rail workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Baltimore started a regional strike for increased wages that resulted in the bloodiest labor event in Pittsburgh’s history.

American railroad companies were feeling the effects of the Long Depression that began in 1873. Companies like the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) and Pennsylvania Railroads (PRR) took advantage of the depression to weaken growing railroad worker union membership, initiating repeated 10% wage cuts. In protest, rail workers in Martinsburg and Baltimore blocked the movement of B&O trains, disconnected cars from locomotives and refused to let trains leave. The movement migrated westward to Pittsburgh.

Masses of workers gathered in Pittsburgh rail yards, striking against wage cuts and doubled train lengths, according to Pittsburgh historian Charles McCollester. In response, PRR President Thomas A. Scott and local officials called upon President Rutherford B. Hayes, who ordered strikers to disperse in 24 hours. Local police and Pittsburgh-area units of the Pennsylvania National Guard were dispatched but refused to fire upon strikers. 

Scott called on Pennsylvania Gov. John Hartranft, who sent in National Guard units from Philadelphia. Protestors encircled them and cornered them into a PRR building. The National Guard troops shot their way to safety, killing 20 people, including women and children.

Enraged iron mill and industrial laborers left their posts on a wildcat strike, not authorized by their unions’ leadership, in solidarity with rail workers. Gunfire ensued, and the mob burned 104 PRR locomotives, 46 passenger cars and 506 freight cars, in addition to 39 buildings. More than 40 people were killed in Pittsburgh. Hartranft cracked down with a legion of 3,700 federal and state troops to settle riots once and for all. One worker claimed that they were “shot back to work.” While workers did not win material concessions, support for labor activity grew tremendously.

1883 Pittsburgh Proclamation

In October 1883, militant Chicago activists traveled to Pittsburgh to meet with trade union delegates and create the International Working People’s Association (IWPA, also known as the International).

At this Pittsburgh Congress, radical labor activists including August Spies, Albert Parsons and Johann Most wrote the Pittsburgh Proclamation, a militant manifesto addressing the working men of America and calling for action against the bourgeoisie. According to “Death in the Haymarket” author James R. Green, the manifesto “rejected formal political institutions,” such as parties and ballots as tools beholden to wealthy interests.

“We could show by scores of illustrations that all attempts in the past to reform this monstrous system by peaceable means, such as the ballot, have been futile,” the manifesto read. “Since we must then rely upon the kindness of our masters for whatever redress we have, and knowing that from them no good may be expected, there remains but one recourse — FORCE!”

In the following years, the International and other militant trade unions expanded, especially in Chicago where the manifesto’s authors lived and organized. The authors pushed the manifesto’s fiery rhetoric into the newspapers published by their Socialistic Publishing Company and read by “nearly all the workers who joined the International or supported it,” according to Green.

1892 Homestead Strike

Skilled steel workers at the Homestead mills were part of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, which, by the late 1800s, had negotiated and fought for some of the best wages and conditions of any workers in the country, according to McCollester. Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick sought to weaken the union and cut costs, and did so after the union’s three-year contract expired in 1892 by presenting an ultimatum: wage cuts or bust. The company made public advertisements for strikebreakers and constructed a 10-foot fence topped with barbed wire around the mills in a deliberate effort to provoke a strike.

They succeeded. Frick hired the infamous Pinkerton Agency, which built a reputation for busting unions via infiltration and intimidation. Arriving by boat before dawn on July 6, Pinkerton agents were spotted by workers and townsfolk, who patrolled in eight-hour shifts and communicated via signals. Hearing that Pinkerton barges were coming in, thousands of families rushed down to the Monogahela to keep them out, engaging them in intense gunfire. Before long, the Pinkertons surrendered, came ashore and were beaten by the mobs. At the end of the skirmish, seven protestors and three Pinkertons were dead.

At Frick’s heed, 8,500 National Guard forces were dispatched, dissolving the crowd. Following that, Frick announced, “Under no circumstances will we have any further dealing with the Amalgamated Association as an organization. This is final.” Final it was: The Amalgamated Association disbanded three months later. Management shrunk wages by 20% and increased shifts to 12 hours from eight. Today, a historical marker designates the site of the clash, which now houses the Waterfront shopping center.

1909 Pressed Steel Car Strike

Eugene V. Debs, one of the most influential and foremost labor activists in US history, declared the Pressed Steel Car strike, “The greatest labor fight in all my history in the labor movement.” Also known as the McKees Rocks strike, the Pressed Steel Car strike arose from dissatisfied workers who were dying daily as they assembled rail cars at the Pressed Steel Car Company. One factory was nicknamed “the slaughterhouse.” Its business was booming following the PRR’s decision to transition from wooden to steel rail cars. Workers that went on strike were fired and replaced by the scores of Slavic and other European immigrants who came in the early 1900s.

Workers were not paid a wage, but received payments from their foreman through an inconsistent pool system. With a workforce of Russian, German, Italian, Polish, Czech and other European immigrants, management expected solidarity to be hard to arouse, hoping language barriers would divide their workers and keep profits high. This was not the case. According to historian Sidney Lens, multilingual workers facilitated mass demonstrations, including a walkout of 600 workers, and a rally on a nearby mound overlooking the river where 8,000 protestors listened to “a battery of speeches in nine different languages,” vowing to “never return to work unorganized and unprotected.” 

Much like the 1877 and 1892 uprisings, management brought in militarized forces to quell the rebellion. While the Pressed Steel Car Company continued to work on the 15,000 railcar orders, railway workers refused to haul scabs, helping the strikers’ cause. The workers won. Management “agreed to end the pool system, raise wages by an immediate 5% and 10% more in 60 days, fire the remaining scabs and rehire all strikers,” according to Lens.

1937 union activity at the Aliquippa J&L Steel mill 

As part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, Congress passed the Wagner Act, also known as the National Labor Relations Act, in 1935. This established the NLRB to ensure employers complied with new laws protecting workers. The board’s effectiveness was not tested until the 1937 Aliquippa strike and the subsequent Supreme Court case, National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. 

According to McCollester, the steel corporations were particularly resistant to union organizing. The Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, known as J&L, was one of the largest steel producers in the country in 1937 and was particularly anti-union. 

Aliquippa housed J&L’s largest mill and the company dominated the town. Tough workers seeking representation persisted in organizing there under various groups, including the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. In 1937, J&L fired hundreds of these organizers, violating the Wagner Act’s labor protections. Labor activists filed unfair labor practice charges against J&L through the NLRB, carefully selecting 10 fired workers to represent all the major ethnic groups employed at the mill.

The NLRB ordered J&L to reinstate the fired workers. The company appealed the case all the way to the US Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the Wagner Act. 

After seeing the conservative-majority Supreme Court strike down his National Industrial Recovery Act in 1935, Roosevelt sought to prevent the same from happening again by threatening to pack the court with six new judges. Against this pressure, the court upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Act in a 5-4 vote. 

1952 Steelworkers Strike

In April 1952, the US was fighting the Korean War and the domestic steel industry was striving to meet demand for weapons and vehicles.  While business soared, workers were dissatisfied with their wages. Two years prior, President Harry Truman created the Salary Stabilization Board to regulate wages and prices to stabilize the economy during the war. When the board proposed wage increases to the steel companies, they refused, demanding higher compensation for their steel products. Tensions rose. Hours before 600,000 workers were set to go on strike, Truman, seeking unity amid the stress of war, nationalized the industry.

Owners were incensed at Truman’s seizure, and sued the government. On June 2, 1952, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the court found that Truman did not have the authority to seize private property.

Fifty-three days later, the United Steelworkers won a wage increase on essentially the same terms initially proposed.