At last the labor movement had become stabilized.
The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances. The number of
employes involved reached nearly 750,000, surpassing even the mark set
in 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement was
defensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coal
miners and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The United
Mine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership did
not exceed 20,000, but about 125,000 struck. At first the demand was
made that wages should be restored to the level at which they were in
May 1893. But within a month the union in most regions was struggling to
prevent a further reduction in wages. By the end of July the strike was
lost.
The Pullman strike marks an era in the American labor movement because
it was the only attempt ever made in America of a revolutionary strike
on the Continental European model. The strikers tried to throw against
the associated railways and indeed against the entire existing social
order the full force of a revolutionary labor solidarity embracing the
entire American wage-earning class brought to the point of exasperation
by unemployment, wage reductions, and misery.
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