18941776 Club
4,000 Pullman workers walk off the job; wages cut 30 percent, but the rent is still due
The Palace Car men say George Pullman slashed their pay while holding company-town rents and grocery bills firm, and the American Railway Union is listening.
On May 11, 1894, nearly 4,000 workers at George Pullman's Palace Car factory outside Chicago walked off the job — their wages cut 20 to 30 percent while their rent and grocery bills in the company town stayed exactly where they were. Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union turned that local walkout into a nationwide boycott that paralyzed rail traffic west of Detroit, drew 250,000 workers across 27 states into the fight, and ended with federal troops on the ground, 30 strikers dead, and Debs in prison…
