When Labor Day was declared a national holiday in 1894, it was designed to recognize and support skilled trades workers throughout the U.S. -- but it happened around a time that was actually quite violent for many rail workers.
In 1893, 130 years ago, the country was experiencing an economic recession that had a significant impact on the railroad industry. In response, the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer located in Chicago, decided to lay off hundreds of employees and reduce wages to cut costs.
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At that time, many Pullman workers lived in the company town of Pullman, Illinois. In addition to dealing with lay offs and lower wages, company owner George Pullman reportedly refused to lower rents or store prices in the town, according to history.com.
“Angry Pullman workers walked out in May 1894, and the following month, the American Railway Union and its leader, Eugene V. Debs, declared a sympathy boycott of all trains using Pullman cars,” the History Channel website says.
The union effectively launched what was known as the Pullman Strike, which reportedly blocked rail traffic and commerce in 27 states across the country. The strike became more violent, and even deadly, later in the summer.
At the end of June 1894, some rioters set fires to buildings and derailed a locomotive attached to a mail car in Blue Island, Illinois, stirring concern in the federal government and prompting a federal injunction. Railroad company leaders requested the federal government’s help to end the strike. Federal troops were sent to Chicago in July to enforce the injunction.
On July 6, 1894, some striking workers were destroying hundreds of railroad cars. On July 7, National Guardsmen reportedly fired into a crowd of people, killing at least 30 people. Many others were wounded, history.com reports.
Only days earlier, amid all of the chaos, then-President Grover Cleveland was handed legislation passed by Congress that declared Labor Day a national holiday. President Cleveland signed the bill into law on June 28, 1894, establishing every first Monday of September as Labor Day.
Those federal troops stayed in Illinois until July 20.
The strike was declared over that August, ordered to an end by the Supreme Court. The American Railway Union officially disbanded a few years later. The first national Labor Day was observed on Sept. 3, 1894.
Despite the violent end to the strike, there was an upside: A commission appointed by President Cleveland reportedly found Pullman and his paternalist company town partly to blame for the strike. The efforts on behalf of workers and union leader Eugene V. Debs led the federal government to acknowledge the importance of negotiation between employers and employees in such situations.
Strikes are a tool still used by union members today to express grievances toward their employer and push employers to comply with demands.
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