The Pullman Strike (1894) was significant in American labor history because it showed that the needs and concerns of union members mattered less to the government than the needs and concerns of industrial executives.
Explanation:
The 1894 Pullman strike was an important episode in the political history of the United States, in which the unions' power was stoked after a centrally controlled military intervention against striking workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company, an Illinois company that produced rail cars, especially sleeping cars.
The background of the strike was the 1893 economic crisis in the United States, where the firm, with falling demand for their products, had reduced workers' wages by 25% and not at the same time reduced the rent in the homes provided by the firm in its associated city, Pullman. Many of the workers were already organized in the militant American Railway Union (ARU) led by Eugene Debs, and several joined the union because of the cuts.
Workers struck from May 11, 1894, and Debs then embarked on an action under which members of the ARU refused to work in Pullman wagons. This led to a closure of the factory, and employers initiated a lockout of ARU members. Gradually it came to more extreme action, and among other things, a bunch of furious protesters set fire to some buildings and derailed a locomotive.
Gradually, the strike attracted nationwide attention, and the striking orders were given to cease operations as well as their leaders to stay out of the actions. Debs and his people ignored this order calling for government troops. A total of about 12,000 soldiers participated in the strike being stopped, and their pretext for the intervention came from President Grover Cleveland himself, stating that the strikers with their actions hindered the delivery of mail - although the Pullman wagons had never transported mail.
Eugene Debs was sentenced to six months in prison for resisting the order not to impede post delivery. An attempt to appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and Debs had to go to jail. Here he spent some time reading Karl Marx's works, and although he was not a socialist before, he remained behind bars. When he was released, he actively went into politics as a socialist and ran for president five times.
