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Pullman Strike, (11 de mayo de 1894 – c. 20 de julio de 1894), en la historia de los Estados Unidos, huelga generalizada y boicot que interrumpió severamente el tráfico ferroviario en el Medio Oeste de los Estados Unidos en junio – julio de 1894. La respuesta del gobierno federal a la Los disturbios marcaron la primera vez que se usó un mandato judicial para romper una huelga. En medio de la crisis, el 28 de junio Pres. Grover Cleveland y el Congreso crearon un feriado nacional, el Día del Trabajo, como un gesto conciliatorio hacia el movimiento laboral estadounidense.
Preguntas principales
¿Qué fue el Pullman Strike?
La huelga Pullman (mayo-julio de 1894) fue una huelga ferroviaria generalizada y un boicot que interrumpió el tráfico ferroviario en el medio oeste de Estados Unidos en junio-julio de 1894. En respuesta a los despidos, recortes salariales y despidos, los trabajadores de Pullman Palace Car Company en Chicago continuaron huelga y, finalmente, unos 125,000-250,000 trabajadores ferroviarios en 27 estados se unieron a su causa, sofocando la red ferroviaria nacional al oeste de Chicago. Al afirmar que la huelga violó la Ley Antimonopolio Sherman, Edwin Walker, un abogado especial que actúa para el Fiscal General de los Estados Unidos Richard Olney, obtuvo una orden judicial que el presidente de los Estados Unidos. Grover Cleveland solía enviar tropas federales para abordar la huelga. Tras un brote de violencia mortal, la huelga disminuyó y se reanudó el tráfico ferroviario.
John Peter Altgeld
Lea sobre el gobernador prolabour lllinois John Peter Altgeld, quien se opuso al uso de tropas federales durante la huelga Pullman.
¿Por qué los trabajadores de Pullman se declararon en huelga?
En respuesta a la caída de los ingresos durante la depresión económica que comenzó en 1893, la Pullman Palace Car Company redujo a más de 2.000 trabajadores y redujo los salarios en un 25 por ciento. Cuando no redujo también los alquileres y otros gastos en Pullman, la ciudad de la compañía cerca de Chicago donde vivían la mayoría de los trabajadores de Pullman, muchos trabajadores y sus familias enfrentaron hambre. Una delegación de trabajadores intentó presentar sus quejas ante el presidente de la compañía, George M. Pullman, pero se negó a reunirse con ellos y ordenó que fueran despedidos. Luego, la delegación votó a favor de la huelga, y los trabajadores de Pullman abandonaron el trabajo el 11 de mayo de 1894.
Lea más a continuación: La huelga y el boicot
George M. Pullman
Learn more about George Pullman, president of the Pullman Palace Car Company.
What were the effects of the Pullman Strike?
The massive disruption of rail traffic and the violent confrontations between strikers and demonstrators on one side and strikebreakers, law enforcement, and troops on the other during the Pullman Strike convinced many Americans that class conflict between capital and labour in the United States had reached a crisis stage that needed a solution in the public interest. In the short term, the fear of more violence limited union activity, and the courts acted to suppress strikes.
Organized labour: Origins of craft unionism
Read about the origins of the organized labour movement in the United States.
What was the significance of the Pullman Strike?
By involving as many as 250,000 railroad workers on some 20 railroads, the Pullman Strike demonstrated the power of the labour movement. However, in precipitating the use of an injunction to break the strike, it opened the door to greater court involvement in limiting the effectiveness of strikes. The event also established a greater role for federal government intervention in strikes and introduced the use of the federal military in addressing strikes. The violence that resulted from the strike also temporarily reduced public support for the labour movement.
Labor Day
Learn how the Pullman Strike contributed to the founding of Labor Day in the U.S.
What role did Eugene V. Debs play in the Pullman Strike?
Eugene V. Debs was the president of the American Railway Union (ARU), which represented about one-third of the Pullman workers and which had concluded a successful strike against the Great Northern Railway Company in April 1894. When the ARU voted to support the Pullman workers, the Pullman Strike became a national action, and Debs became its de facto leader. Although he cautioned against the violence that broke out, Debs received a six-month prison sentence for contempt of court (for violating the injunction issued against the strike) that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in In re Debs (1895). During his incarceration he embraced socialism.
Eugene V. Debs
Read more about Eugene V. Debs.
Clarence Darrow
Read about renowned attorney Clarence Darrow, who defended Eugene V. Debs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The strike and boycott
In response to financial reverses related to the economic depression that began in 1893, the Pullman Palace Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars, cut the already low wages of its workers by about 25 percent but did not introduce corresponding reductions in rents and other charges at Pullman, its company town near Chicago, where most Pullman workers lived. As a result, many workers and their families faced starvation. When a delegation of workers tried to present their grievances about low wages, poor living conditions, and 16-hour workdays directly to the company’s president, George M. Pullman, he refused to meet with them and ordered them fired. The delegation then voted to strike, and Pullman workers walked off the job on May 11, 1894. As soon as the plant had emptied, company representatives posted signs at all the gates: “The works are closed until further notice.”
At the time of the strike, 35 percent of Pullman’s workforce was represented by the American Railway Union (ARU), which had led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railway Company in April 1894. Although the ARU was not technically involved in the Pullman workers’ decision to strike, union officials had been in Pullman and at the meeting at which the strike vote was taken, and Pullman workers undoubtedly believed that the ARU would back them. When the ARU gathered in Chicago in June for its first annual convention, the Pullman strike was an issue on the delegates’ minds.
A great deal of sympathy existed in Chicago and elsewhere for the Pullman workers, who were seen as common men and women tyrannized by an abusive employer and landlord. The question was how the ARU could support the workers, who, after all, did not exactly work on the railroads. One plan was to refuse to hitch Pullman cars to trains and to unhitch those that were already attached. Another idea was a boycott: ARU members would refuse to handle Pullman cars or any trains with Pullman cars until the railroads severed their ties with the Pullman Company.
On June 22 the ARU delegates passed a motion to initiate a boycott unless the Pullman Company agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration by June 26. During the next three days, several committees were sent to the company in the hope of winning concessions that would make the boycott unnecessary, but all were turned away.
Crucial to the success of any boycott would be the switchmen, who had joined the ARU in large numbers. The ARU’s president, Eugene V. Debs, predicted that, once the switchmen refused to add or remove Pullman cars from trains, the railroads would fire them and try to replace them with nonunion workers, and that in turn would lead other union members to walk out in solidarity, thus bringing more and more trains to a halt.
The scenario played out as Debs had predicted. On June 27, 5,000 workers left their jobs and 15 railroads were tied up. By the next day, 40,000 had walked off, and rail traffic was snarled on all lines west of Chicago. On the third day, the number of strikers had climbed to 100,000, and at least 20 lines were either tied up or completely stopped. By June 30, 125,000 workers on 29 railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars. The ARU had few locals in the East or the Deep South, but the boycott seemed remarkably effective everywhere else.
Debs may have been pleased by the effectiveness of the boycott, but he was also alarmed by the anger expressed by the workers, which he feared could lead to violence. During the first week of the boycott he sent some 4,000 telegrams, hundreds every day, urging the ARU locals to stay calm and not to overreact.
On June 29 Debs spoke at a large and peaceful gathering in Blue Island, Illinois, to gather support from fellow railroad workers. After he left, however, groups within the crowd became enraged, set fire to nearby buildings, and derailed a locomotive. Unfortunately for the strikers, the locomotive was attached to a U.S. mail train. That greatly upset Pres. Grover Cleveland in that the strike had now prevented the federal government from exercising one of its most-important responsibilities.
