Great Railroad Strike of 1877 - Impact On Future Labor Relations

Impact On Future Labor Relations

After the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, union organizers planned for their next battles while politicians and business leaders took steps to ensure that such chaos could not reoccur. Many states enacted conspiracy statutes. States formed new militia units, and National Guard armories were constructed in a number of cities. For workers and employers alike, the strikes had shown the power of workers in combination to challenge the status quo. They were driven, as a Pittsburgh state militiaman, who was ordered to break the 1877 strike, pointed out, by “one spirit and one purpose among them -– that they were justified in resorting to any means to break down the power of the corporations.”

Thus, in the wake of the strike, unions became better organized and the number of strikes increased. In the 1880s there were nearly ten thousand strikes and lockouts and in 1886 nearly 700,000 workers went on strike. As is to be expected, business leaders took a more rigid stance against the unions. Nonetheless, and possibly because of the more rigid stance, the labor movement continued to grow.

One result of the strike was increased public awareness of the grievances of railroad workers. In 1880 the B&O railroad, which had the lowest wage rate of any major railroad, established the Baltimore and Ohio Employees' Relief Association, which provided coverage for sickness, injury from accidents, and a death benefit. In 1884, the B&O became the first major employer to offer a pension plan.

In 1886, there was a national strike aimed at reducing the average workday from twelve to eight hours, and 340,000 workers struck at 12,000 companies nationwide. In Chicago, police were trying to break up a large labor meeting in Haymarket Square, when a bomb exploded without warning, killing a police officer. Police fired into the crowd, killing one and wounding many more. Because of the riot, four labor organizers were hanged. The hangings of these organizers took the steam out of the national labor movement and energized management. By 1890, Knights of Labor membership had fallen to ten percent of its previous levels.

In 1893-1894, a severe depression swept the nation and America saw some of its worst strikes in history, including that against the Pullman Palace Car Company. The strike, which had been caused by severe wage cuts, stopped railroad traffic, with battles between troops and strikers breaking out in twenty-six states.

The defeat of the Pullman Strike fed an intense debate within the labor movement between the proponents of craft unionism and of industrial unionism, an argument that continued for several decades.