Pullman Strike Essay Sample
The Pullman Strike was a countrywide struggle in the summer of 1894 between the new American Railway Union ( ARU ) and railroads that occurred in the United States. It shut down much of the nation’s cargo and rider traffic West of Detroit. Michigan. The struggle began in the town of Pullman. Illinois. on May 11 when about 4. 000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat work stoppage in response to recent decreases in rewards. Most factory workers who built Pullman autos lived in the planned worker community of Pullman. The industrialist George Pullman had designed it as a theoretical account community. but he controlled it exhaustively. When his company laid off workers and lowered rewards. it did non cut down rents. and the workers called for a work stoppage. They had non formed a brotherhood.
Founded in 1893 by Eugene V. Debs. the ARU was an organisation of unskilled railway workers. Debs brought in ARU organisers to Pullman and signed up many of the dissatisfied workers. When the Pullman company refused arbitration. the ARU called a work stoppage against the mill. but it showed no mark of success. To win the work stoppage. Debs decided to halt the motion of Pullman autos on railwaies. The over-the-rail Pullman employees ( such as music directors and porters ) did non travel on work stoppage.
Debs and the ARU called a monolithic boycott ( normally called a “strike” ) that affected most lines west of Detroit and at its extremum involved some 250. 000 workers in 27 provinces. The Railroad brotherhoods and the American Federation of Labor ( AFL ) opposed the boycott. and the General Managers Association of the railwaies coordinated the resistance. Riots and sabotage caused $ 80 million in amendss ; 30 people were killed. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The federal authorities secured a federal tribunal injunction against the brotherhood. Debs. and the top leaders. telling them to halt interfering with trains that carried mail autos. After the strikers refused. President Grover Cleveland ordered in the Army to halt the strikers from blockading the trains. Violence broke out in many metropoliss. and the work stoppage collapsed. Defended by a squad including Clarence Darrow. Debs was convicted of go againsting a tribunal order and sentenced to prison ; the ARU dissolved.
