3.—That the improvements already referred to warranted a decrease in tonnage rates, and that, even allowing for this decrease, the tonnage men would make more money than they did when the sliding scale went into effect in 1889.
4.—That there was no question of starvation wages, since the reductions proposed would affect only 325 men out of 3,800[A], and would merely bring the wages of these men to an equality with those paid in other mills operated with union labor but not possessing the improved appliances of the Carnegie plant.
[A] The event shows that Mr. Frick cannot have been sincere in this statement. Wages have been seriously depressed in almost all departments of the Homestead mill.
5.—That in the non-union mills operated by the Carnegie Company, good wages were paid and the employees were contented.
An answer to Mr. Frick's statement was drawn up by the workmen and published on the following day. The arguments in rebuttal were briefly as follows:
1.—That, as the workingmen do not sell the product of their labor, they must, under a sliding scale, protect themselves by requiring a minimum basis of wage-rates, which should not fall so low as to involve the payment of extremely low wages.
2.—That the enjoyment of fair rates of wages by the non-union workmen at Braddock and Duquesne was due to the fixing of a standard by the Amalgamated Association, below which the wages of non-unionists could not decently be permitted to fall.
3.—That, in preparing the scale, the workmen had made full allowance for improved machinery, not forgetting that the improvements had displaced many men, and thus, in a manner, repaid the cost of the investment. If there had been a misunderstanding on this head, it could have been adjusted by fair discussion, but fair discussion was impossible with an employer who declined to confer.
4.—That, of the 3,800 men employed, all or nearly all were affected by one or the other of the changes proposed, to-wit: a reduction in the minimum, another reduction in the proportionate rate of pay (thus making a double reduction) and the termination of the scale on December 31, 1893, instead of June 30, 1894.
In concluding their answer, the workmen said, "If argument and honest reasoning were substituted for the reserve and coldness of manner seen in the company's present attitude, there might be reason to expect an end of this deplorable state of affairs."