Pullman Strike

In 1894 railroad industry workers in Chicago, Illinois , found themselves facing a labor situation they could not abide. George Pullman (1831–1897) had founded the town of Pullman, Illinois (just south of Chicago), in 1880 and opened a railroad-car manufacturing plant there. The town was just 300 acres in size, but it was home to factories, mills, and a foundry (where iron and steel are made into usable products), as well as homes, public buildings, and shops. Pullman's twelve hundred residents had few economic choices in their lives. The money they spent on rent (Pullman's homes could be rented, but not owned), food, gas, and anything else went directly to the Pullman Palace Car Company. As in the patch towns miners lived in, prices in Pullman were higher than they were elsewhere.

Pullman's company was successful. At the end of 1893, he was paying $7.22 million in wages and another $2.52 million in dividends (monies paid to stockholders). America was hit with an economic depression that year, and it lasted until 1897. During that time, Pullman fired more than three thousand workers and cut the wages of those still in his employment. He did not lower the cost of housing or services, though. Once those deductions were taken from wages, most employees were left with $6 a week on which to live. And yet the company continued to pay its shareholders the regular dividend amounts.

In May 1894, Pullman listened as a committee of dissatisfied employees complained about the situation. He refused to consider raising wages or lowering prices of rent and services in the town. Pullman insisted that what he did as an employer should have no bearing on his role as a landlord. Then, against a promise he had made earlier, he fired three of the workers on the committee. This breach of promise led the Pullman local labor union (a formally organized association of workers that advances its members’ views on wages, work hours, and labor conditions) to strike on May 11.

When the union declared the strike, Pullman immediately fired the six hundred workers who were not involved and closed its doors. History was on the side of business when it came to labor disputes. Pullman was prepared to wait out the strike, which he believed would not last long. Pullman workers realized how serious the situation was and approached the American Railway Union (ARU) for help. The ARU, under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926), called for a boycott (an organized refusal to deal with a business) of all Pullman cars on June 26, 1894. About 150,000 railway workers across the country complied, and within a couple days, trains were not leaving Chicago.

Business was negatively affected by the Pullman strike, as was mail delivery and transportation in general. This strike affected not just Chicago or even all of Illinois, but the entire nation. Railroad companies had no choice but to call on the government for assistance in breaking the strike. When Illinois governor John Altgeld (1847–1902) refused to summon military troops and made it clear that his sympathies lay with the strikers, the railroads went directly to the federal level. When Debs ignored a federal circuit court order demanding workers return to their jobs, he was arrested for contempt of court and conspiracy to interfere with the mail, and he served a six-month jail sentence.

President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97) did what no president before him had ever done: He intervened in a labor strike. On July 4, he sent in twenty-five hundred federal troops to halt the strike. Rioting occurred July 7–9 when strikers attacked the military troops. Soldiers responded with gunfire at pointblank range. About thirty strikers were killed and many more were wounded. The twenty-five hundred federal troops soon became fourteen thousand as state and other federal troops joined in the confrontation. The strikers were defeated within the week. After several weeks of negotiating, the Pullman Palace Car Company reopened its doors on August 2. As part of the agreement, strikers were allowed to return to work unless they had been convicted of crimes during the strike.

The conflict did not benefit the workers. Debs went to prison, the ARU disbanded, and American society supported big business and management more unwaveringly than ever before.