In 1893, an economic depression led George Pullman to decrease factory workers' wages. But, he didn't lower the rent they paid him to live in his company town.
The worlers felt like their robber baron was passing on the cost of the recession to them. In May 1894, the workers went on strike.
The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, came in to represent the factory workers and called for a nationwide boyctt of Pullman railcars. That summer more than 18,000 Pullman workers walked off the job and were joined by over 200,000 railway workers nationwide.
Almost all of the railroads out of Chicago -- the rail hub of North America -- were shut down.
Said Gabriel Winant, a history professor at the University of Chicago, "The real historical significance of (the strike) is the very early effort at industrial unionism" -- an organizing method in which all workers at an industry are represented by the same union, rather than by disparate craft unions.
--RoadStrike
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