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Pullman Strike, in U.S. history, railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest in June and July of 1894. The federal government’s response to the unrest marked the first time that an injunction was used to break a strike.
The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chicago in spring 1894.
Pullman workers, who had formed a grievance committee to negotiate with the company, were getting nowhere, and, though ARU leadership advised against it, a strike broke out at the Pullman factories on May 11,1894.
George M. Pullman refused to meet with workers to hear their requests for higher wages, lower rents, and better working conditions. In protest, Pullman workers walked off the job on May 11, 1894.
In the late spring of 1894, over four thousand workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went out on strike. The company seemed an unlikely place for a strike, as its workers inhabited the well-appointed company town of Pullman, located near Chicago, Illinois.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was a milestone in American labor history, as the widespread strike by railroad workers brought business to a standstill across large parts of the nation until the federal government took unprecedented action to end the strike.
On May 11, 1894, about 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike. Many of the strikers were members of the American Railway Union (ARU) led by Eugene V. Debs. Later the ARU voted to support the strike by launching a boycott in which ARU union members refused to run trains with Pullman cars.