To all
appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on
November 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not to
employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of
a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly
ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the
reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the
ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of
a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an
end to the suffering of the men and their families.
New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike
and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate
strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York
with coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;
both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by
the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of
Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of
the "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of
their own.
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