Today in Labor History August 10, 1901: The U.S. Steel recognition strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) began. AA formed in 1876 and was declining significantly in size and power by 1901. Technological advances had caused significant downsizing in the steel industry, with many highly skilled workers being fired and replaced by more easily interchangeable, and more poorly trained, workers to operate the newer machines. In 1892, AA had lost the infamous Homestead strike, against Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, in which 12 people were killed. By 1901, nearly all the major metal fabricators had joined the new U.S. Steel trust, including J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. AA saw the writing on the wall and made a last-ditch, desperate attempt to organize all the steel and tin workers before the limitless resources of the new trust could crush them. And they failed, rather quickly and spectacularly, when the strike ended on September 14, 1901.

In the aftermath of the strike, many of the socialist and anarchist union leaders, and rank and file workers, blamed Samuel Gompers (of the newish American Federation of Labor) and Johnny Mitchell (of the United Mine Workers) of being too cozy with the corporate bosses and politicians, and of selling them out. This led to increasing conflict in the following years between the more radical elements of the labor movement and the more mainstream tendencies. It slowed down the growth of the conservative AFofL and, ultimately, to Mitchell’s removal as head of the UMW, in 1908. The AA, however, grew increasingly conservative, and weaker, and by 1909 ceased to be a relevant force in the labor movement.

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