Pullman strike
The Pullman Strike began as a wildcat strike on May 11, 1894, when about 4,000 workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in the southern Pullman neighborhood of Chicago , Illinois , refused to work. It expanded to become the largest workers' protest in US history to date . After about two months, the strike was bloodily suppressed.
History and environment
George Mortimer Pullman had made it as an entrepreneur in the largest American sleeping car company . He was a "welfare capitalist" with a patriarchal leadership style. Pullman built the industrial city of Pullman named after him as a model project for his employees . Pullman workers had to live there, in attractive, company-owned houses that were fully equipped with plumbing, gas and sewage systems. Like many other industrial workers, they did not have to live in the usual shabby tenements , often in unsanitary conditions. Pullman hoped his charity would prevent dissatisfaction, so Pullman skimp on workers' wages.
But the amenities came at a price. Everything in Pullman's town belonged to his society, not just the houses, but also the basic facilities for their residents: department stores, schools and also the church, a theater and the park. The company obtained water and gas from Chicago and offset the consumption at its own prices. The Pullman Company thus controlled almost every aspect of the lives of its workers and exercised a kind of debt bondage . De facto, the tenants had to stick to the wage contract if they had a letter when shopping or if they couldn't afford to change their employer, who was also their landlord . Because of the comfort of the furnishings, rents were a quarter higher than in the surrounding communities. Rent and other debts were automatically deducted from paychecks, and many of the workers often did not see their full wages. There is a rumor that a worker only saw 2 cents of income on the pay slip for a month of work after these deductions .
In Chicago, a railroad hub, the Pullman Palace Car Company was one of the major companies. The city experienced a high influx of immigrants from the USA - including many people of color - and immigrants from Europe (mainly Eastern and Southern Europeans). Demonstrations by industrial workers for better working conditions and higher wages had taken place during the Haymarket uprising in May 1886 and the Homestead strike in 1892, which also claimed human lives.
occasion
The United States experienced a major economic slump in the early 1890s . In 1893, 3,000 people were laid off in Pullman's company and the rest of them were expected to receive an average of 25 percent wage cuts between September 1893 and May 1894. At its peak, the drop in income was between 30 and 70 percent, but without reducing the rent demanded by society and other costs in the workers' settlement . Some workers who refused to accept this opposed it. Workers joined the young American Railway Union (ARU), which was successful at the Great Northern Railway with a wage cutback, and was led by Eugene V. Debs . When demand improved somewhat, the Pullman Company hired 2,000 people again, but only on the basis of lower wages. The Pullman workers therefore formed a committee in May 1894 to discuss their unsatisfactory situation with Pullman management.
Following the conversation, three committee members were fired, allegedly because of their poor work performance. Word of the dismissal of these people they trust got around in no time and the disgruntled workforce decided to go on strike without consulting the union beforehand. It began on May 11, 1894. The wildcat strike effectively reduced production in the Pullman workshops. The employer refused the offer of arbitration and locked all employees out by closing the plant.
Effects of the strike
The Pullman workers appealed to the ARU at their delegates' meeting in Chicago to support their labor dispute. Eugene V. Debs tried to convince railroad workers that boycott was too risky, could lead to railroad and government hostilities, weakening of the ARU, and the possibility of strike-breaking by other unions. The delegates ignored his warnings and decided to refuse to handle Pullman wagons from June 26 if the company does not agree to a dispute settlement.
Since nothing happened, the ARU helped organize a massive strike. Debs now appealed to its members for solidarity with the Pullman workers. He ordered a boycott of the Pullman sleeping cars. Where the Pullman wagons could not or would not be uncoupled from the train, the network of the railway company concerned went on strike.
On the other hand, the railroad companies now saw an opportunity to get rid of the rebellious ARU. The General Managers Association of the 24 rail lines calling into the city of Chicago ordered the dismissal of any worker who unmounted a Pullman car and had the sleeping cars hooked up to mail trains.
Many supply routes were paralyzed when organized railroad workers across the nation blocked trains running on Pullman wagons (later also Wagner railroad cars) on a sympathy strike by refusing to check in. Tens of thousands of workers across the country took part in the Pullman strike. The strike was particularly effective on transcontinental train connections from Chicago to the western United States.
The US government actually intervened. On July 2, she obtained the Sherman Antitrust Act in federal court to ban all support for strikes by the railroad workers' union. When federal troops were deployed in Chicago on July 3, 1894 , there was a further escalation by the strikers.
Crackdown
The strike, which was now accompanied by serious riots, was finally broken by willing workers, around 3,100 police officers, around 5,000 US marshals and around 6,000 members of the National Guard and the US Army under the command of Nelson Miles. The military had been set in motion by President Grover Cleveland with the argument that the strike was hindering the delivery of mail within the United States. The free travel of the mail trains must be guaranteed. The US President deployed troops at the request of the Pullman board of directors and against the wishes of the Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld , and the Mayor of Chicago, John Patrick Hopkins .
On July 6, around 6,000 revolters set 700 railroad cars on fire in southern Chicago. On July 7th, 1894, the buildings of the already ended 1893 World's Fair were set on fire at Jackson Park. The fire broke out at the height of the Pullman strike. Among the buildings that caught fire were the exhibition management hall and the exhibition halls for manufacturing, electricity, mechanics, agriculture and the fair's train station. Since strikers started other fires this week, it is possible that dissatisfied Pullman workers started that fire too.
The offices of the ARU were vandalized by members of the police and army, and the union leaders were arrested. Union members have been fired from employers and their names have been blacklisted in pay offices to prevent reinstatement.
The strike cost a total of 13 lives and 57 were injured. Property damage was estimated at $ 80 million. Union chief Debs and other ARU leaders were charged as " conspirators " and found guilty of disrupting the postal service. Debs was sentenced to six months in prison.
On August 2, 1894, the strike ended. The Pullman Company resumed operations but did not hire strike leaders. The employees had to sign afterwards that they would no longer be unionized.
consequences
- Debs was not a socialist at the time of his imprisonment . In the state prison, however, he read the works of Karl Marx. After his release in 1895, he became the leading socialist leader in America. He ran five times for president with the support of the American Socialist Workers Party , first in 1900.
- Just before the turn of the 20th century, the working class in the United States began to struggle against the negative effects of capitalism . She fought for better wages, better working conditions and a less strenuous work schedule. Socialist ideas were put forward, which cited labor as the most important means of production and highlighted its exploitation by capitalists. As the success of the Pullman strike demonstrated, the unions' most powerful weapon is a strike.
- The mood of the collective bargaining partners in the USA was then long affected. An analysis of the background to the Pullman strike was carried out under the title A Modern Lear Jane Addams , member of an arbitration committee and socially committed politician. However, she was only able to publish her article in 1912.
Trivia
The Pullman strike plays a role in the novel Agnes by the Swiss writer Peter Stamm .
literature
- David Ray Papke: The Pullman case: the clash of labor and capital in industrial America . Univ. Press of Kansas, 1999. ISBN 0-7006-0953-9 (English)
- David MacGregor Means (1847–1931): Principles Involved in the Recent Strike , in: The Forum , August 1894, pp. 633-643, 642 unz.org
See also
Web links
- Timeline for Pullman Strike (English)