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.