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Page 2 of 4 Labor Injunction Sanctioned Eugene V. Debs, believing a drastic change from strictly craft unionism was needed if organized labor were to remain a viable movement, began to organize railway workers into one union. Between late 1892 and June 1893, Debs’s campaign enjoyed tremendous success. With a successful strike against the Great Northern line, the American Railway Union was made. Firemen; brakemen; car men; and yard, depot and shop workers flocked into its ranks. Employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company joined the ARU in the spring of 1894. These workers lived in a company town and paid their rent, utility bills and taxes to the company. In September 1893 Pullman cut wages 22 percent; however, rents and costs for other services remained the same. Several months later the employees’ request for an adjustment was rebuffed, and some persons on the committee which attempted to negotiate were discharged. Their fellow workers walked off the job, appealing to the ARU to assist them.
When Pullman refused to arbitrate, Debs called a sympathetic boycott of company stock. At first the strike was peaceful—and also ineffective. Sleeping cars remained attached to all trains, and a halt in new-car production was inconsequential to Pullman. The workers asked the ARU convention in June 1894 to refuse operating trains with Pullman sleeping cars attached. With the granting of the boycott, the conflict escalated. As each shift of workers refusing to handle any trains with Pullman cars was fired, fellow workers walked off the job in sympathy. By June 27 the boycott involved 14 other lines; and eventually 260,000 workers struck nationwide. If “the greatest battle between labor and capital,” as The New York Times dubbed the conflict, had remained a struggle between workers and the company, the ARU possibly would have won. However, Pullman was supported by the General Managers’ Association, a combination of 24 railroads which ultimately had the support of the federal government. The GMA asked U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney, a man with strong ties to the railroads, for help. After President Cleveland refused to send in federal troops, Olney sought judicial authority to suppress the boycott-strike. The logic he used was: A railroad was a ‘Public highway”; any hindrance to that highway could be seen as a restraint of commerce; employees in concert quitting work on a highway were obstructing it; therefore, this obstruction was a “conspiracy in restraint of trade” and subject to the jurisdiction of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Olney also invoked federal authority to prevent interference with the mails. Sidney Lens, in Strikemakers & Strikebreakers, said Edwin Walker, a UMA attorney appointed by Olney, filed “the most sweeping injunction against strikers in American history”—which was granted without a single union witness being allowed to testify. The injunction prohibited leaders from taking any action on behalf of the strike: “communicating with a striker or sending telegrams or answering questions about the injunction. ... It was illegal to ‘persuade a railroad worker to join the strike or stay on strike,’ even if the persuasion was peaceful.” (Later, the U.S. Strike Commission pondered whether courts had jurisdiction to prevent persons from “persuading” each other in matters of common interest.) ‘Thousands of deputies, paid by the government but recruited by the GMA, were hired to protect mail cars. When the injunction was read to a crowd at Blue Island, Illinois, the deputies there and the U.S. marshal were jeered and pushed around. The marshal, together with Walker and the judges who granted the injunction, sent a misleading message about imminent general-strike action to Olney. Olney relayed the message to President Cleveland, who ordered federal troops into Chicago. Illinois Governor Altgeld sent President Cleveland a message calling the use of federal troops unnecessary, unjustifiable and unconstitutional. Altgeld responded to local requests for assistance by dispatching 5,000 state militia when riots developed after the appearance of federal troops. The violence escalated, with some people setting railway cars on fire and (mostly federal) troops attacking crowds across the country. President Cleveland issued an order prohibiting any kind of meetings in seven states, including California and Illinois. The government’s actions generated sympathy from the general public and the rest of labor toward the strikers. But the damage had been done. By July 10 Debs had been arrested for conspiracy, and within a few days he and three other ARU leaders were arrested for contempt of court in violating the injunction. Indictments on various other federal charges were handed down against them and 71 other leaders. By August 5 the ARU voted to call off the strike. While Debs’s conspiracy trial was never concluded, the contempt case resulted in the In re Debs decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The court sanctioned the idea of conspiracy in restraint of trade as a criminal and a civil offense, expanding the possibilities for judicial application of the doctrine of conspiracy to labor. In other words, labor activities could be thwarted by civil action. In addition, In re Debs sanctioned the use of injunctions to protect property in the form of “probable expectancies”; i.e., it could be used in industrial conflicts affecting an employer’s relations with customers or employees. Page 2 of 4 |
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