Forces Prompting The Strike
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.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Steel Recognition Strike Of 1901
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“We don’t arrive at it by standing on one leg or on the first day of our setting out—but though we may jostle one another on the way that is no reason why we should strike or trample—elbowing’s enough.”
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