Major Labor
Disputes After
the Civil War
5-4
Railroad Strike of 1877
• Aka 'The Great Strike’
• was the result of continued wage cuts of the laborers such as
engineers and trainmen, while many of the companies
continued to pay out dividends to its stockholders.
• The B&O Railroad, based in Baltimore, Maryland, was one of the
last to cut the wages of its employees.
• When the wage cut was announced on July 11, 1877, the workers
had had enough.
• The strike started in Baltimore and spread across the entire nation.
• Even as they agreed to some worker demands, bosses were
determined to never again allow workers the upper hand.
Railroad Strike of 1877
• Even as they agreed to some worker demands, bosses were
determined to never again allow workers the upper hand.
• President Hayes sent in federal troops and it took 12 days to restore
order.
• Over 100 people died and over $10 million in railroad property
destroyed.
• Made people realize that a more peaceful way of dealing with labor
disputes needed to come about.
• Working people learned that without strong unions and nationwide
organization they could not defeat the alliance of business and
government.
Haymarket Square Riot
• The riot set off a national wave of panic as scores of foreign-born
radicals and labor organizers were rounded up by the police in
Chicago and elsewhere.
• In August 1886, eight men, labeled as anarchists, were convicted in
a sensational and controversial trial in which the jury was
considered to be biased and no solid evidence was presented
linking the defendants to the bombing.
• In the aftermath of the Haymarket Square Riot and subsequent trial
and executions, public opinion was divided.
• For some people, the events led to a heightened anti-labor
sentiment, while others (including labor organizers around the world)
believed the men had been convicted unfairly and viewed them as
martyrs.
Haymarket Square Riot
• Nationwide strike was called on May 1st to fight for an 8 hour work
day. Thousands of people in Chicago went on strike.
• The May 4, 1886, rally at Haymarket Square was organized by labor
radicals to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the
Chicago police during a strike the days before at the McCormick
Reaper Works.
• Toward the end of the Haymarket Square rally, a group of policemen
arrived to disperse the crowd. As the police advanced, an individual
who was never identified threw a bomb at them.
• The police and possibly some members of the crowd opened fire
and chaos ensued. Seven police officers and at least one civilian
died as a result of the violence that day, and an untold number of
other people were injured.
Homestead Strike
• The Homestead Strike, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, pitted one of the
most powerful new corporations, Carnegie Steel Company, against the
nation’s strongest trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers.
• An 1889 strike had won the steelworkers a favorable three-year contract;
but by 1892 Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the union. His
plant manager, Henry Clay Frick, stepped up production demands, and
when the union refused to accept the new conditions, Frick began locking
the workers out of the plant.
• On July 2 all were discharged. The union, limited to skilled tradesmen,
represented less than one-fifth of the thirty-eight hundred workers at the
plant, but the rest voted overwhelmingly to join the strike.
• An advisory committee was formed, which directed the strike and soon
took over the company town as well. Frick sent for three hundred
Pinkerton guards, but when they arrived by barge on July 6 they were
met by ten thousand strikers, many of them armed.
• After an all-day battle, the Pinkertons surrendered and were forced to run
a gauntlet through the crowd.
Homestead Strike
• In all, nine strikers and seven Pinkertons were killed; many strikers and
most of the remaining Pinkertons were injured, some seriously.
• The sheriff, unable to recruit local residents against the strikers, appealed
to Governor William Stone for support; eight thousand militia arrived on
July 12.
• Gradually, under militia protection, strikebreakers got the plant running
again. Frick’s intransigence had won sympathy for the strikers, but an
attempt on his life by anarchist Alexander Berkman on July 23 caused
most of it to evaporate.
• Meanwhile, the corporation had more than a hundred strikers arrested,
some of them for murder; though most were finally released, each case
consumed much of the union’s time, money, and energy.
• The strike lost momentum and ended on November 20, 1892. With the
Amalgamated Association virtually destroyed,
• Carnegie Steel moved quickly to institute longer hours and lower wages.
• The Homestead Strike inspired many workers, but it also underscored how
difficult it was for any union to prevail against the combined power of the
corporation and the government.
Homestead Strike
• http://www.history.com/topics/andrewcarnegie/videos/homesteadstrike?m=5189719baf036&s=All&f=1&free=fal
se
The Pullman Strike
• Pullman created Pullman City to house his employees. It was
on a three-thousand-acre tract. His workers were required to
live in Pullman City. They were also expected to accept cuts in
pay and not criticize workloads
• In 1893, because of a depression, factory wages at the
company fell about twenty-five percent, but the rents George
Pullman charged did not decrease.
• If a Pullman worker went into debt, it was taken from his
paycheck.
• On May 11,1894, three thousand Pullman workers went on a
"wildcat" strike, that is, without authorization of their union.
• Many of the strikers belonged to the American Railroad Union
(ARU) founded by Eugene V. Debs.
• On June 26, 1894, some ARU members refused to allow any
train with a Pullman car to move, except those with mail cars.
The Pullman Strike
• Debs did not want federal troops to get involved, and he knew that if
the U.S. mail was tampered with, the troops would be there
immediately.
• On July 2, 1894, an injunction form a federal court was obtained
saying that the strike was illegal. When the strikers did not return to
work the next day, President Cleveland sent federal troops into
Chicago.
• This enraged strikers, and rioters began stopping trains, smashing
switches, and, again, setting fire to anything that would burn.
• On July 7, another mob stopped soldiers escorting a train through
the downtown Chicago area. Many people were killed or wounded
from bullets.
• The Pullman Strike was important because it was the first time a
federal injunction had ever been used to break up a strike.
The Lawrence Textile Strike
• Early in 1912, mill owners at the American Wool Company in
Lawrence, Massachusetts, reacted to a new state law
reducing the number of hours that women could work to 54
hours per week by cutting the pay of their women mill
workers.
• On January 11, a few Polish women at the mills went on strike
when they saw that their pay envelopes had been shorted; a
few other women at other mills in Lawrence also walked off
the job in protest.
• The next day, on January 12, ten thousand textile workers
walked off the job, most of them women. The city of Lawrence
even rang its riot bells as an alarm.
• Eventually, the numbers striking rose to 25,000.
• The city reacted with nightime militia patrols, turning fire
hoses on strikers, and sending some of the strikers to jail.
The Lawrence Textile Strike
• The success of these measures in bringing public attention and
sympathy resulted in the Lawrence authorities intervening with
militia with the next attempt to send children to New York.
• Mothers and children were, according to temporary reports, clubbed
and beaten as they were arrested. Children were taken from their
parents.
• The brutality of this event led to an investigation by the U.S.
Congress, with the House Committee on Rules hearing testimony
from strikers. President Taft's wife attended the hearings, giving
them more visibility.
• The mill owners, seeing this national reaction and likely fearing
further government restrictions, gave in on March 12 to the strikers'
original demands at the American Woolen Company.