The Homestead strike, which culminated with a day-long gun battle on July 6 that left 12 dead and dozens wounded, led to a wave of de-unionization.

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.

Instead, the American Sheet Steel Co. idled its union facilities while keeping its nonunion works running at full speed.

The AA was confronted with a crisis: It had to organize the plants of U.S. Steel before the corporation, with its comparatively limitless resources, could stop the union drives.

But the executive committee of U.S. Steel was equally aware of the threat the AA posed, and the company's board of directors secretly adopted a resolution on June 17, 1901, opposing any unionization attempt.

Subsequently, Sheet Steel officers agreed on July 13, 1901 to recognize the union at 18 of the company's 23 nonunion plants.

But AA president T.J. Shaffer rejected the deal; after having demanded the unionization of every Sheet Steel plant, he would not be satisfied with anything less.

A meeting between Morgan and Shaffer (accompanied by AA secretary John Williams) resulted in an additional wage agreement.

But this wage agreement, which covered only the existing unionized plants, was rejected by the AA executive board.

[citation needed] In A History of American Labor, Joseph G. Rayback has written, After the strike was lost, the Amalgamated charged Gompers with "lukewarmness" and Mitchell of the U.M.W.

It served to focus attention upon Gompers' and Mitchell's association with industrialists in the National Civic Federation.

U.S. Steel drove down wages so much that independent, nonunion plants had to cut salaries in order to stay competitive.