fbpx
Wikipedia

American Railway Union

February 08, 2023

The American Railway Union (ARU) was briefly among the largest labor unions of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. Launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893, the ARU won an early victory in a strike on the Great Northern Railroad in the summer of 1894.[1] This successful strike was followed by the bitter 1894 Pullman Strike in which government troops and the power of the judiciary were enlisted against the ARU, ending with the jailing of the union's leadership for six months in 1895 and effectively crushing the organization. The group's blacklisted and dispirited remnants finally disbanded the organization via amalgamation into the Social Democracy of America (SDA) at its founding convention in June 1897.

Seven of the eight officers of the American Railway Union jailed in connection with the 1894 Pullman strike—standing from left to right: George W. Howard, Martin J. Elliott, Sylvester Keliher; seated: William E. Burns, James Hogan, Roy M. Goodwin Eugene V. Debs; and not shown: L. W. Rogers

Organizational history

Establishment

Volition for a formation of an industrial union uniting all branches of the railroad industry began in the early 1890s with the failure of an attempt at loose federation of several railway brotherhoods by Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen Secretary-Treasurer and Locomotive Firemen's Magazine editor Eugene V. Debs. A new union bringing together all railway workers, regardless of craft or service, was constructed in a series of meetings held in Chicago, Illinois,[2] beginning with a four-hour session held at the Leland Hotel on February 9 and 10, 1893.[3] Headquarters for the new union were to be rented in Chicago.[3]

This preparatory meeting, chaired by George W. Howard of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, former Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors, elected a three-person committee to write a constitution and by-laws for the new organization,[3] which was formally launched at a week-long convention attended by 24 delegates representing many of the numerous railway brotherhoods held at Chicago's Greene Hotel from April 11–17, 1893.[4] This gathering formally elected officers for the new union, including Debs as President, Howard as Vice President and Sylvester Keliher (Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen) as Secretary-Treasurer of the ARU.[5]

Day-to-day governance was by these three officers as part of a nine-member Board of Directors, which also included W.S. Missemer of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, W.H. Sebring of the Order of Railroad Conductors, Frank W. Arnold of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Henry Walton of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, James A. Clark of the Railway Telegraphers and Louis W. Rogers of the magazine Age of Labor.[6]

A convention to introduce the new union to the broader public and to build organizational momentum was scheduled and held in Chicago on June 20, 1893. A mass meeting of railroad employees was held in conjunction with the gathering, meeting at Uhlich's Hall in Chicago at 8 pm, where it was addressed by Eugene Debs and others.[7]

Structure

 
Advertisement for pins and fobs bearing the emblems of the ARU

The ARU was to be divided into 12 regional districts, each of which maintained a headquarters office in a local urban center.[8] These districts were to in turn be subdivided, apparently on a state basis, with the organization to be governed by annual state conventions and a quadrennial national convention of the entire organization.[8] These national conventions were to choose a governing Board of Directors for the organization and to elect officers.[8]

Only one official national convention of the ARU was held; this convened at Fisher's Hall in Chicago at 10 o'clock on the morning of June 12, 1894.[9] About 400 delegates were in attendance—too many for the venue, which caused the gathering to be immediately moved after convocation to the more spacious room at Uhlich's Hall.[9] There the assembled delegates heard a lengthy keynote address delivered by ARU President Gene Debs before adjourning for additional meetings in secret session.[9]

Great Northern Railway strike

Beginning in August 1893, the Great Northern Railway enacted a series of wage cuts for its workers, reductions amounting to $146,500 per month.[10] The American Railway Union organized all classes of employees of the road in a strike action lasting 18 days and forcing the company to arbitration of its unilateral wage cuts.

The arbitrators, consisting of businessmen from St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, found in favor of the Great Northern workers, thereby pressuring the company to roll back its wage cuts.[11] It was the ARU's first and only victory.

Pullman Strike

Main article: Pullman Strike

Buoyed by the success of the Great Northern strike, railway workers on other lines sought similar redress of their grievances through strike action. Debs and other union officials were concerned that other disruptions were inopportune, with the union needing a brief respite to better organize itself and to restore its finances.[12] However, this was not to be because on May 11, 1894, the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company launched a wildcat strike against their employer.[12]

The Pullman Company had begun a company town on the outskirts of Chicago called Pullman, Illinois, incorporated into the city of Chicago in 1889. The company and town were namesakes of its millionaire owner, George Pullman. The town of Pullman was his "utopia". He owned the land, homes and stores. Workers had to live in his homes and buy from his stores, thereby ensuring virtually all wages returned directly back into his pockets.

Although initially opposed to the strike, Debs responded to notice of the strike of the Pullman workers by traveling to Chicago to investigate the situation in person.[12] Debs later recalled in sworn testimony:

I found that the wages and expenses of the employees were so adjusted that every dollar the employees earned found its way back into the Pullman coffers; that they were not only not getting wages enough to live on, but that they were daily getting deeper into the debt of the Pullman company; that it was impossible for many of them to leave there at all... Wages had been reduced, but the expenses remained the same, and no matter how offensive the conditions where they were compelled to submit to them. After I heard those statements I satisfied myself that they were true and I made up my mind, as president of the American Railway Union, of which these employees were members, to do everything in my power that was within law and within justice to right the wrongs of those employees.[13]

An effort was made by the ARU to engage the Pullman Company and its workers in arbitration, but the officers of the company refused to submit to the proposal, instead claiming that they had nothing to arbitrate.[13] Railway workers had lost confidence in the existing network of craft-based railway brotherhoods—which were essentially fraternal benefit societies—to resist an industry-wide wage reduction campaign coordinated by the railway managers' association and looked to the fledgling ARU as a mechanism to stem the tide. Sympathy for the Pullman Company workers was widespread among other workers in the railroad industry.

The ARU's constitutionally-required biannual convention was forthcoming and delegates representing the 465 locals of the union—which claimed a total membership of about 150,000—assembled in the city to take up matters of concern to the organization.[13] During the course of the proceedings, the situation of the Pullman workers came before the assembly, which appointed a committee of Pullman employees to study the situation.[14]

On June 21, 1894, two days prior to adjournment of the convention, the Pullman Committee reported that the company continued to refuse to arbitrate its unilateral wage cuts.[15] The committee recommended that an ultimatum be delivered that unless the Pullman Company began arbitration within 5 days, a boycott of railroad workers should be launched under which no member of the ARU would handle a train to which Pullman cars were attached.[15] After discussion this proposal was accepted by majority vote of the convention and a strike deadline was scheduled for June 26.[15]

The June 26 deadline came and still the Pullman Company refused to arbitrate its wage reductions. Railway employees began to refuse to handle trains pulling Pullman cars.[16] The ARU established temporary strike headquarters in Chicago to keep more closely abreast of the situation.[16] Chicago became a constant mass of meetings as workers of the various railway crafts gathered to discuss the strike situation.[16] The railway switchmen were the first to act, refusing to attach Pullman cars to trains.[17] When one switchman would be fired for insubordination, all the others in the shop would quit, in accord with a previously agreed upon plan.[17]

The railway managers took to the courts for relief, gaining a sweeping injunction against the ARU which was served upon union president Debs on July 2.[17] Terms of the injunction prohibited the union from sending out any telegram or letter or issuing any order which would have the effect of inducing or persuading railroad workers to withhold their service in pursuit of the strike action.[17]

 
The 1894 Pullman Strike of the ARU being dispersed by soldiers

The rationale for this legal action lay in the fact that the Mail was transported by rail—transport which was interrupted when trains including Pullman cars were stopped in their tracks. Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which ruled it illegal for any business combination to restrain trade or commerce, an injunction was issued on July 2 enjoining the ARU leadership from "compelling or inducing by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, railway employees to refuse or fail to perform their duties". The next day, President Cleveland ordered 20,000 federal troops to crush the strike and run the railways.

Transition to a political party

By July 7, Debs and ten other ARU leaders were arrested and later tried and convicted for conspiracy to halt the free flow of mail. The strike was finally crushed while the board and president spent six months in prison in Woodstock, Illinois. Pullman reopened with all labor union leaders sacked.

During Debs' time in jail, he spent much of his time reading the literary works of Karl Marx and socialist texts brought to jail by Victor L. Berger.[18] After Debs got out of jail, he merged the ARU with the Brotherhood of the Co-operative Commonwealth to form the Social Democracy of America (SDA). In 1900, Elliott ran for Congressman in Montana and Debs ran for President heading the SDA ticket.[19] Elliott was later elected to the Montana Legislature while Debs ran unsuccessfully four more times for the presidency as a socialist.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "No Wheels Turning, Star Tribune, April 14, 1894, pg 1. The Great Northern Strike: April 14-May 1, 1894.
  2. ^ Marion Dutton Savage, Industrial Unionism in America, 1922, p. 277.
  3. ^ a b c "Call It the American Railway Union: The New Organization Will Endeavor to Abandon Strike Methods," Chicago Daily Tribune, vol. 52, no. 41 (February 10, 1893), p. 3.
  4. ^ "All Railway Men: National Federation Will Embrace Every Branch: Unions to Consolidate," Chicago Tribune, vol. 52, no. 102 (April 12, 1893), p. 9.
  5. ^ "American Railway Union Elects Officers," Chicago Inter-Ocean, vol. 22, no. 25 (April 18, 1893), p. 3.
  6. ^ Sylvester Keliher, "Dawn of a New Era," Railway Carmen's Journal, vol. 3, whole no. 26 (May 1893), p. 259.
  7. ^ "Announcements," Chicago Inter-Ocean, vol. 22, no. 88 (June 20, 1893), p. 5.
  8. ^ a b c "American Railway Union: An Outline of the Proposed Plan of Organization," Los Angeles Tribune, vol. 40, no. 41 (May 22, 1893), p. 1.
  9. ^ a b c "Uses Harsh Words: President Debs' Sharp Criticism of George M. Pullman," Chicago Daily Tribune, vol. 53, no. 164 (June 13, 1894), p. 9.
  10. ^ Eugene V. Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," in United States Strike Commission, Report on the Chicago Strike of June–July 1894. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1895; p. 134.
  11. ^ Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," p. 135.
  12. ^ a b c Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," p. 129.
  13. ^ a b c Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," p. 130.
  14. ^ Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," pp. 130–131.
  15. ^ a b c Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," pg. 131.
  16. ^ a b c Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," p. 140.
  17. ^ a b c d Debs, "Testimony of Eugene V. Debs," p. 142.
  18. ^ Eugene V. Debs, "How I Became a Socialist." The Comrade, April 1902.
  19. ^ The Tribune almanac and political register edited by Horace Greeley, John Fitch Cleveland, F. J. Ottarson, Edward McPherson, Alexander Jacob Schem, Henry Eckford Rhoades

Further reading

  • Papke, David Ray. The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America (University Press of Kansas, 2019)

Primary sources

  • Eugene V Debs (June 1, 1895). "Proclamation to American Railway Union". Marxists.org. Retrieved October 1, 2017.

External links

  • "United States Strike Commission: The American Railway Union". Illinois state museum, museum.state.il.us.
  • .
  • "The Rise in the American Railway Union, 1893-1894". Interactive map from the Spatial History Project, Stanford.
  • History of Railroad Unions Web Site.

February 08, 2023
american, railway, union, briefly, among, largest, labor, unions, time, first, industrial, unions, united, states, launched, meeting, held, chicago, february, 1893, early, victory, strike, great, northern, railroad, summer, 1894, this, successful, strike, foll. The American Railway Union ARU was briefly among the largest labor unions of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States Launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893 the ARU won an early victory in a strike on the Great Northern Railroad in the summer of 1894 1 This successful strike was followed by the bitter 1894 Pullman Strike in which government troops and the power of the judiciary were enlisted against the ARU ending with the jailing of the union s leadership for six months in 1895 and effectively crushing the organization The group s blacklisted and dispirited remnants finally disbanded the organization via amalgamation into the Social Democracy of America SDA at its founding convention in June 1897 Seven of the eight officers of the American Railway Union jailed in connection with the 1894 Pullman strike standing from left to right George W Howard Martin J Elliott Sylvester Keliher seated William E Burns James Hogan Roy M Goodwin Eugene V Debs and not shown L W Rogers Contents 1 Organizational history 1 1 Establishment 1 2 Structure 1 3 Great Northern Railway strike 1 4 Pullman Strike 1 5 Transition to a political party 2 See also 3 Footnotes 4 Further reading 4 1 Primary sources 5 External linksOrganizational history EditEstablishment Edit Volition for a formation of an industrial union uniting all branches of the railroad industry began in the early 1890s with the failure of an attempt at loose federation of several railway brotherhoods by Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen Secretary Treasurer and Locomotive Firemen s Magazine editor Eugene V Debs A new union bringing together all railway workers regardless of craft or service was constructed in a series of meetings held in Chicago Illinois 2 beginning with a four hour session held at the Leland Hotel on February 9 and 10 1893 3 Headquarters for the new union were to be rented in Chicago 3 This preparatory meeting chaired by George W Howard of Oshkosh Wisconsin former Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors elected a three person committee to write a constitution and by laws for the new organization 3 which was formally launched at a week long convention attended by 24 delegates representing many of the numerous railway brotherhoods held at Chicago s Greene Hotel from April 11 17 1893 4 This gathering formally elected officers for the new union including Debs as President Howard as Vice President and Sylvester Keliher Secretary Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen as Secretary Treasurer of the ARU 5 Day to day governance was by these three officers as part of a nine member Board of Directors which also included W S Missemer of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen W H Sebring of the Order of Railroad Conductors Frank W Arnold of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen Henry Walton of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers James A Clark of the Railway Telegraphers and Louis W Rogers of the magazine Age of Labor 6 A convention to introduce the new union to the broader public and to build organizational momentum was scheduled and held in Chicago on June 20 1893 A mass meeting of railroad employees was held in conjunction with the gathering meeting at Uhlich s Hall in Chicago at 8 pm where it was addressed by Eugene Debs and others 7 Structure Edit Advertisement for pins and fobs bearing the emblems of the ARU The ARU was to be divided into 12 regional districts each of which maintained a headquarters office in a local urban center 8 These districts were to in turn be subdivided apparently on a state basis with the organization to be governed by annual state conventions and a quadrennial national convention of the entire organization 8 These national conventions were to choose a governing Board of Directors for the organization and to elect officers 8 Only one official national convention of the ARU was held this convened at Fisher s Hall in Chicago at 10 o clock on the morning of June 12 1894 9 About 400 delegates were in attendance too many for the venue which caused the gathering to be immediately moved after convocation to the more spacious room at Uhlich s Hall 9 There the assembled delegates heard a lengthy keynote address delivered by ARU President Gene Debs before adjourning for additional meetings in secret session 9 Great Northern Railway strike Edit Beginning in August 1893 the Great Northern Railway enacted a series of wage cuts for its workers reductions amounting to 146 500 per month 10 The American Railway Union organized all classes of employees of the road in a strike action lasting 18 days and forcing the company to arbitration of its unilateral wage cuts The arbitrators consisting of businessmen from St Paul and Minneapolis Minnesota found in favor of the Great Northern workers thereby pressuring the company to roll back its wage cuts 11 It was the ARU s first and only victory Pullman Strike Edit Main article Pullman Strike Buoyed by the success of the Great Northern strike railway workers on other lines sought similar redress of their grievances through strike action Debs and other union officials were concerned that other disruptions were inopportune with the union needing a brief respite to better organize itself and to restore its finances 12 However this was not to be because on May 11 1894 the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company launched a wildcat strike against their employer 12 The Pullman Company had begun a company town on the outskirts of Chicago called Pullman Illinois incorporated into the city of Chicago in 1889 The company and town were namesakes of its millionaire owner George Pullman The town of Pullman was his utopia He owned the land homes and stores Workers had to live in his homes and buy from his stores thereby ensuring virtually all wages returned directly back into his pockets Although initially opposed to the strike Debs responded to notice of the strike of the Pullman workers by traveling to Chicago to investigate the situation in person 12 Debs later recalled in sworn testimony I found that the wages and expenses of the employees were so adjusted that every dollar the employees earned found its way back into the Pullman coffers that they were not only not getting wages enough to live on but that they were daily getting deeper into the debt of the Pullman company that it was impossible for many of them to leave there at all Wages had been reduced but the expenses remained the same and no matter how offensive the conditions where they were compelled to submit to them After I heard those statements I satisfied myself that they were true and I made up my mind as president of the American Railway Union of which these employees were members to do everything in my power that was within law and within justice to right the wrongs of those employees 13 An effort was made by the ARU to engage the Pullman Company and its workers in arbitration but the officers of the company refused to submit to the proposal instead claiming that they had nothing to arbitrate 13 Railway workers had lost confidence in the existing network of craft based railway brotherhoods which were essentially fraternal benefit societies to resist an industry wide wage reduction campaign coordinated by the railway managers association and looked to the fledgling ARU as a mechanism to stem the tide Sympathy for the Pullman Company workers was widespread among other workers in the railroad industry The ARU s constitutionally required biannual convention was forthcoming and delegates representing the 465 locals of the union which claimed a total membership of about 150 000 assembled in the city to take up matters of concern to the organization 13 During the course of the proceedings the situation of the Pullman workers came before the assembly which appointed a committee of Pullman employees to study the situation 14 On June 21 1894 two days prior to adjournment of the convention the Pullman Committee reported that the company continued to refuse to arbitrate its unilateral wage cuts 15 The committee recommended that an ultimatum be delivered that unless the Pullman Company began arbitration within 5 days a boycott of railroad workers should be launched under which no member of the ARU would handle a train to which Pullman cars were attached 15 After discussion this proposal was accepted by majority vote of the convention and a strike deadline was scheduled for June 26 15 The June 26 deadline came and still the Pullman Company refused to arbitrate its wage reductions Railway employees began to refuse to handle trains pulling Pullman cars 16 The ARU established temporary strike headquarters in Chicago to keep more closely abreast of the situation 16 Chicago became a constant mass of meetings as workers of the various railway crafts gathered to discuss the strike situation 16 The railway switchmen were the first to act refusing to attach Pullman cars to trains 17 When one switchman would be fired for insubordination all the others in the shop would quit in accord with a previously agreed upon plan 17 The railway managers took to the courts for relief gaining a sweeping injunction against the ARU which was served upon union president Debs on July 2 17 Terms of the injunction prohibited the union from sending out any telegram or letter or issuing any order which would have the effect of inducing or persuading railroad workers to withhold their service in pursuit of the strike action 17 The 1894 Pullman Strike of the ARU being dispersed by soldiers The rationale for this legal action lay in the fact that the Mail was transported by rail transport which was interrupted when trains including Pullman cars were stopped in their tracks Under the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890 which ruled it illegal for any business combination to restrain trade or commerce an injunction was issued on July 2 enjoining the ARU leadership from compelling or inducing by threats intimidation persuasion force or violence railway employees to refuse or fail to perform their duties The next day President Cleveland ordered 20 000 federal troops to crush the strike and run the railways Transition to a political party Edit By July 7 Debs and ten other ARU leaders were arrested and later tried and convicted for conspiracy to halt the free flow of mail The strike was finally crushed while the board and president spent six months in prison in Woodstock Illinois Pullman reopened with all labor union leaders sacked During Debs time in jail he spent much of his time reading the literary works of Karl Marx and socialist texts brought to jail by Victor L Berger 18 After Debs got out of jail he merged the ARU with the Brotherhood of the Co operative Commonwealth to form the Social Democracy of America SDA In 1900 Elliott ran for Congressman in Montana and Debs ran for President heading the SDA ticket 19 Elliott was later elected to the Montana Legislature while Debs ran unsuccessfully four more times for the presidency as a socialist See also Edit Organized labour portalBrotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen List of American railway unionsFootnotes Edit No Wheels Turning Star Tribune April 14 1894 pg 1 The Great Northern Strike April 14 May 1 1894 Marion Dutton Savage Industrial Unionism in America 1922 p 277 a b c Call It the American Railway Union The New Organization Will Endeavor to Abandon Strike Methods Chicago Daily Tribune vol 52 no 41 February 10 1893 p 3 All Railway Men National Federation Will Embrace Every Branch Unions to Consolidate Chicago Tribune vol 52 no 102 April 12 1893 p 9 American Railway Union Elects Officers Chicago Inter Ocean vol 22 no 25 April 18 1893 p 3 Sylvester Keliher Dawn of a New Era Railway Carmen s Journal vol 3 whole no 26 May 1893 p 259 Announcements Chicago Inter Ocean vol 22 no 88 June 20 1893 p 5 a b c American Railway Union An Outline of the Proposed Plan of Organization Los Angeles Tribune vol 40 no 41 May 22 1893 p 1 a b c Uses Harsh Words President Debs Sharp Criticism of George M Pullman Chicago Daily Tribune vol 53 no 164 June 13 1894 p 9 Eugene V Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs in United States Strike Commission Report on the Chicago Strike of June July 1894 Washington DC Government Printing Office 1895 p 134 Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs p 135 a b c Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs p 129 a b c Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs p 130 Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs pp 130 131 a b c Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs pg 131 a b c Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs p 140 a b c d Debs Testimony of Eugene V Debs p 142 Eugene V Debs How I Became a Socialist The Comrade April 1902 The Tribune almanac and political register edited by Horace Greeley John Fitch Cleveland F J Ottarson Edward McPherson Alexander Jacob Schem Henry Eckford RhoadesFurther reading EditPapke David Ray The Pullman Case The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America University Press of Kansas 2019 Primary sources Edit Eugene V Debs June 1 1895 Proclamation to American Railway Union Marxists org Retrieved October 1 2017 External links Edit United States Strike Commission The American Railway Union Illinois state museum museum state il us Gene Debs and the American Railway Union The Rise in the American Railway Union 1893 1894 Interactive map from the Spatial History Project Stanford History of Railroad Unions Web Site Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title American Railway Union amp oldid 1072318941, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.