American Railway Union

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The American Railway Union (ARU) was the largest union in America in the 1890s and the first industrial union in the United States . It was founded on June 20, 1893 by railroad workers in Chicago , Illinois , under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs (a locomotive heater, a few years later socialist presidential candidate). Unlike the other unions, the ARU embodied in its policy a representation of all railway employees, regardless of whether they were employed as craftsmen or in the service of customers at a railway company. Within a year, the ARU had hundreds of local chapters and over 140,000 members across the country.

success

Beginning in August 1893, the Great Northern Railway cut the wages of its employees repeatedly until March 1894. By April, the ARU decided to go on strike and thus paralyzed the railway for 18 days. In doing so, it forced society to withdraw the wage cuts among its workers. That was the union's first and at the same time its only victory.

Pullman strike

Similarly, the Pullman Palace Car Company , a company that manufactures sleeper cars , cut its wages five times - by 30 to 70 percent - between September 1893 and March 1894. The company was based in the Chicago neighborhood of Pullman, named after its owner, the Millionaire George Mortimer Pullman . This industrial city was his "utopia." He owned the land, the houses, and the shops. The workers had to live in his houses and shop in his shops. This ensured that practically all wages flowed back into his pockets.

After the wage cuts, the workers suffered greatly from this constellation because rent and product prices remained the same. His workers formed a committee to present their complaints. Three of its members were fired after the lecture. This in turn led to a spontaneous strike with a full production stop on May 11, 1894. Many Pullman workers had now joined the railroad workers' union.

In June, an ARU meeting held in Chicago to discuss the ongoing Pullman strike . On June 21, the union decided to join the strikers in solidarity and boycotted Pullman wagons. ARU members refused to work on trains with Pullman wagons. The boycott became a great success, especially along the transcontinental rail lines from Chicago to the west. In response to this, the Pullman management issued the order to attach Pullman wagons to the mail trains in order to obtain support for their position on the postal service and to interest the federal government.

With the help of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which ruled that it was illegal for company mergers to restrict trade or trade, a court ban was obtained on July 2nd. It prohibited the ARU leadership from "forcing or causing threats, intimidation, persuasion, violence or assault to deny or prevent railroad employees from performing their duties." The next day, US President Cleveland ordered 20,000 federal troops to go on strike to smash and ensure the train run. By July 7, Debs and seven other ARU leaders were arrested and later charged and convicted of conspiracy to disrupt the postal service.

Decline

The strike was finally crushed while Debs spent six months in Woodstock, Illinois prison. The ARU eventually disbanded. The Pullman Company reopened without the sacked union leaders. While in prison, Debs spent much of his time reading the literary works of Karl Marx .

literature

  • Nick Salvatore: Eugene V. Debs, citizen and socialist . Univ. of Illinois Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-252-07452-3 (English)