Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead steel plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was typical of most of his plants. Workers put in 12-14 hour days six days a week in steaming hot and dangerous situations for very little pay. One difference at the Homestead site was that the workers were unionized. In 1892, workers asked for a pay increase. The dispute was handled by Carnegie’s top manager, Henry Clay Frick. Carnegie happened to be away on one of his frequent vacations to Scotland where he lived in a castle he had purchased, and played a lot of golf. Frick’s answer to the Homestead workers was to counter offer a pay cut. On July 2, 1892, the plant’s workers went out on strike and gathered near the plant gate to keep “scabs” (strikebreaking non-union workers) from entering the plant. Frick sent for private detectives, employees of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, to clear the union workers away and allow new workers to come in. On July 6, Three hundred Pinkertons came down the adjacent river in a barge where they faced a mob of 10,000 workers and their supporters on the shore determined not to let them near the entrance gate. Shots were fired on both sides and when the day was over nine strikers had been killed along with seven Pinkerton agents. The Pinkertons had never been able to get off their barge and surrendered. The strikers, for the moment, controlled the plant. The Pinkerton agents withdrew from the town of Homestead ( mostly populated by the 3800 plant workers and their families), facing the humiliation of running a gauntlet of angry workers who cursed, spat and swung blows at them. It was a short lived victory for the strikers. A week later, Pennsylvania governor Albert Pattison called out the 8,000 members of the state national guard. The troops reopened the plant and non-union workers and a few desperate union workers who slowly filtered back to work resumed steel production. Still, public sympathy remained with the strikers until an anarchist, Alexander Berkman, tried to assassinate Frick. Although shot in the stomach, Frick recovered. Public opinion began to swing in favor of Carnegie and Frick and against the strikers after this action. By November, 1892, most union workers had meekly come back to their jobs. People at their income level could ill afford much time off work. The price for the workers to return to their job: a cut in pay and the decertification (elimination) of their union. Now no Carnegie steel plant was unionized. Workers continued to work in harsh conditions and for low wages.