In the lead role would be the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AA) with a five-member steering committee.

The Homestead strike, which culminated with a day-long gun battle on July 6 that left 10 dead and dozens wounded, led to a wave of de-unionization.

Samuel Gompers and other AFL leaders had a nativist view of the unskilled immigrants working in steel plants.

But the organizing drive was hampered by the refusal of many of the participating unions to provide resources and support, and by the committee's lack of a mechanism to enforce jurisdictional agreements and requisition funds.

[10] Shortly after Armistice Day, AFL organizers in and around Pittsburgh began to be harassed by the steel companies: permits for meetings were denied, meeting halls could not be rented (when they were, the local Board of Health closed the hall), Pinkerton agents stopped organizers at the train station and forced them to leave town, and literature was seized.

Steelworkers felt betrayed by the broken promises of employers and the government to keep prices low, raise wages and improve working conditions.

The AFL held a national steelworkers' conference in Pittsburgh on May 25, 1919, to build momentum for an organizing drive but refused to let the workers strike.

Worried committee members, seeing their chance for solid membership gains slipping away, agreed to a strike referendum in the mills in August.

As the strike deadline approached, the National Committee attempted to negotiate with U.S. Steel chairman Elbert Gary.

Telegrams and letters were sent back and forth, but Gary refused to meet, and Wilson – on his ill-fated tour to drum up support for the League of Nations – was unable to influence the company.

Foster's past as a Wobbly and syndicalist, and claimed this was evidence that the steelworker strike was being masterminded by communists and revolutionaries.

The federal government's inaction permitted state and local authorities and the steel companies room to maneuver.

The Pennsylvania state police clubbed picketers, dragged strikers from their homes and jailed thousands on flimsy charges.

In Delaware, company guards were deputized and threw 100 strikers in jail on fake weapons charges.

In Monessen, Pennsylvania, hundreds of men were jailed then were promised release if they agreed to disavow the union and return to work.

After strikebreakers and police clashed with unionists in Gary, Indiana, the U.S. Army took over the city on October 6, 1919, and martial law was declared.

Company officials played on the racism of many white steelworkers by pointing out how well-fed and happy the black workers seemed now that they had 'white' jobs.

Unions on the National Committee, squabbling over jurisdiction in the steel mills, publicly accused one another of failing to support the strike.

The AA, ravaged by the strike and watching its locals collapse, argued with the National Committee for a unilateral return to work.

It then prepared a detailed report that concluded:[19]The United States Steel Corporation was too big to be beaten by 300,000 workingmen.

It had too large a cash surplus, too many allies among other businesses, too much support from government officers, local and national, too strong an influence with social institutions such as the press and the pulpit, it spread over too much of the earth – still retaining absolutely centralized control – to be defeated by widely scattered workers of many minds, many fears, varying states of pocketbook and under a comparatively improvised leadership.The Washington Post printed an opinion that appeared to have gathered the views of businessmen on the strike: "A week's investigation in the steel district has convinced me that an overwhelming majority of the men engaged in it do not want this strike.

Advances in technology, such as the development of the wide strip continuous sheet mill, made most of the skilled jobs in steel making obsolete.

[21] The AA, which had only a minor role to play in the steel strike of 1919, remained moribund until the advent of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee in 1936.