Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union but for all of its mills.  This was agreed, provided the American Sheet Steel Company would agree to the same.  The latter company refused, and a strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company.  In conferences held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year.  This highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives of the union; they demanded all the mills or none.  The strike then went on in earnest.  In August, President Shaffer called on all the men working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on strike.

By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a mistake.  Instead of finding their task easier because the United States Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the organization.  President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter, but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was declared at an end.

The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]

(5) Legislation, Courts, and Politics

While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its growing economic strength.  The scant success with legislation resulted, on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt directed his spectacular campaign.  A good illustration is furnished by the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.

In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon efforts to shorten the working day through legislation.  The movement for shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and social workers.  To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the trade unions.  The exception to the rule was the working day on public work.