Labor Activism
The railroad brotherhoods were comparatively conservative organizations, focused on providing fellowship and services rather than on collective bargaining. Debs gradually became convinced of the need for a more unified and confrontational approach as railroads were powerful companies in the economy.
After stepping down as Brotherhood Grand Secretary in 1893, Debs organized one of the first industrial unions in the United States, the American Railway Union (ARU), for unskilled workers. The Union successfully struck the Great Northern Railway in April 1894, winning most of its demands.
Read more about this topic: Eugene V. Debs
Famous quotes containing the word labor:
“Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)