Andrew Carnegie And The Rise Of Big Business

In this chapter, Livesay details Carnegie’s complicated relationship to labor and unions. Often, Carnegie’s emphasis on cost-cutting leads him to want to cut workers’ wages as low as possible. However, his factory superintendent, Captain Bill Jones, serves as a buffer between Carnegie and the workers, and Jones often convinces Carnegie that higher wages keep workers happy and hard-working. Jones even convinces Carnegie to implement some progressive labor policies, such as changing work-shifts from twelvehours to eighthours. Carnegie pens two articles in support of labor, arguing that employers should support labor unions, and that the American public should sympathize with striking workers who lash out at strike-breakers (often called “scab labor”) (135). Such beliefs put Carnegie at odds with the majority of American industrialists, and Carnegie earns a reputation for being a friend of workers.

In 1888, Carnegie faces a major strike at Edgar Thomson Works. The strike begins when Carnegie posts a notice informing workers that their eight-hour shifts would be terminated, and that pay would be based on a “sliding scale that would tie wages to steel prices” (137). The workers promptly went on strike, and rather than bring in scab labor, Carnegie shuts Edgar Thomson Works down and waits in his New York home for the workers to accept his demands.