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The unionization of the steel industry fits a pattern often repeated across the long and
bruising history of American labor. As in coal and other basic industries, steel’s
management, with precious few exceptions, was fiercely anti-union. Its reigning
barons, beginning with Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick in the 1870s, were
both immensely powerful and utterly ruthless in the protection of their and
their stockholders’ interests. By convincing the public that unions were
dangerously un-American, and by the judicious use of intimidation and violence,
they had for decades maintained the “open” shop, where workers remained free to
accept whatever management offered. “Forged in Steel” by: David
Pacchioli (Research/Penn
State, Vol. 20, no. 1 (January, 1999))
As stated by striking workers at J&L Steel’s
“Every union man should act
like he’s free and stand up to the bosses like a man.” Said another: “It’s
worth [paying union dues] to be able to walk down the main street . . . talk to
anyone you want and feel like you are a citizen.”
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“They say in
There are no neutrals there;
You'll either be a union man,
Or a thug for J. H. Blair.
Which side are you on?”
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There is pow'r there is pow'r in a band of
workingfolk,
When they stand hand in hand,
That's a pow'r, that's a pow'r
That must rule in every land
One Industrial Union Grand.
Joe Hill- There is Power in a
