J&L STEEL STRIKE (1919)

Location: 1070 Braddock Ave, Braddock, PA, 15104

While not the bloodiest, perhaps the most bitter labor struggle in Allegheny County was the 1919 Steel Strike. The American Federation of Labor’s attempt to organize large-scale industrial enterprises inside a craft union structure failed and helped inspire the industrial union movement of the 1930s that succeeded in organizing steel, auto, electrical, rubber, chemicals and other basic sectors of the economy. In the Mon Valley, a mostly Slavic labor force subject to the 84-hour workweek and dangerous working conditions launched the “Hunky Strike”. Steel companies mobilized an estimated 25,000 armed men in the Mon Valley, and civil liberties were routinely suppressed.

1919 steel strike marker, USW Local 1219 Union Hall, 1070 Braddock Ave., Braddock

While the nationwide strike was defeated after several months, the worst aspect locally was the importation of thousands of poor black strikebreakers from the South, where the boll weevil had devastated cotton crops. Because of discriminatory practices, African Americans had little experience with unions and until the New Deal voted solidly Republican. For the immigrant strikers, public meetings were forbidden as was speaking to groups in foreign languages. Gatherings in the street were dispersed by force. Resistance to corporate repression in Braddock was centered at St. Michael’s Slovak Church (now Good Shepherd). Father Adalbert Kazinci allowed union meetings and testified on behalf of the strikers before legislative committees and to the press. “Against them are violence, lies, repression. They have only their patience, their faith, their endurance.”