American Railway Union
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Search complete. 14 mentions across 11 episodes found for "American Railway Union".
Sep 11, 2026
Eric CowanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So...
Eric CowanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The union at the time, the American Railway Union, went to management and said, hey, we want arbitration, we want mediation, we want to be able to talk about this and get our wages fixed and our working conditions repaired.
Eric CowanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The company refused, because remember at this time, the Railway Labor Act did not exist.
Eric CowanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
That didn't come around until 1926.
Caleb SilverHOST
By 1894, you had 23 other states adopting the holiday, celebrating the unions who were pushing back against the railroad companies and the other new industrial companies for unfair labor practices.
Caleb SilverHOST
In 1894, Eugene Debs led members of the American Railway Union on a strike in what is known as the Pullman Strike.
Caleb SilverHOST
Always comes back to trains, my friend.
Caleb SilverHOST
The strike had major economic implications, and soon President Grover Cleveland declared it a federal crime and deployed troops to break it up.
Richard KilmerNARRATOR
So they tried another one.
Richard KilmerNARRATOR
and they indicted another combination engaged in the business of cornering markets engaged in the business of trade rich people good people it means the same thing and the supreme court decided that this law did not fit their case and every one began to wonder what the law did mean anyhow And after a while, there came along the strike of a body of laboring men, the American Railway Union.
Richard KilmerNARRATOR
They didn't have a dollar in the world altogether because they were laboring men, and they were not engaged in trade.
Richard KilmerNARRATOR
They were working, but they hadn't found anything else that the Sherman Antitrust Act applied to, so they indicted Debs and his followers for a conspiracy in restraint of trade, and they carried this case to the Supreme Court I was one of the attorneys who carried it to the Supreme Court.
speaker_3HOST
Eugene D. Debs is a titan.
speaker_3HOST
In 1893, he founded the American Railway Union, or the ARU.
speaker_3HOST
And to understand why the ARU was so dangerous to the establishment, we had to explain the concept of industrial unionism versus craft unionism.
speaker_4HOST
This is a crucial distinction.
speaker_3HOST
Calling railroad barons the codfish-moneyed aristocracy is such a brilliant populist insult.
speaker_3HOST
It shows how deeply the public resented corporate monopolies.
speaker_3HOST
But while the strike had massive grassroots support, it also revealed a deeply ugly fatal flaw within the American railway union.
speaker_4HOST
A flaw that the railroad companies immediately exploited.
Richard BergHOST
Different states, I think Oregon was one of the first ones to pass a Labor Day as a state holiday policy.
Richard BergHOST
But the real thing that did it was the Pullman strike, you know, with Eugene V. Debs and others, which started here in Chicago but spread across the country where the American Railway Union refused to unload cars that were – who were Pullman, or not just unload, or to even, you know, they struck every car, every train that had a Pullman car on it.
Richard BergHOST
And Grover Cleveland broke the strike by...
Richard BergHOST
He'd attach a mail card to it, so it's a federal crime, a felony to tamper with the U.S. mail.
Tony PursleyHOST
The issue, low wages and a 16-hour workday.
Tony PursleyHOST
The Pullman employees gained a considerable degree of momentum on June 22 when the American Railway Union made the decision to no longer move Pullman rail cars from one train to another station.
Tony PursleyHOST
It was an act of solidarity that debilitated countrywide rail traffic.
Tony PursleyHOST
On cue, the Senate passed the Labor Day bill on the same day.
ChristinaHOST
So the town decided to protest.
ChristinaHOST
And the American Railway Union, another union comes in, for railroad workers called a sympathy boycott that paralyzed railroad traffic in 27 states.
ChristinaHOST
So pretty much they shut down the rail system nationwide.
CalebHOST
Whoa.
Evan LindmanHOST
In May 1894, workers walked out.
Evan LindmanHOST
The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, joined in solidarity and refused to handle any trains that included Pullman cars, which basically froze rail traffic across a huge chunk of the country because the disruption affected U.S. mail delivery.
Evan LindmanHOST
President Cleveland used that as a legal justification to send in federal troops over the strong objection of Illinois governor.
Evan LindmanHOST
Things turned out violent.
Rob MarkHOST
They withheld the labor of their members through strikes.
Rob MarkHOST
One of the most famous strikes of the 19th century was the Pullman Railroad Strike of 1894, led by the American Railway Union.
Rob MarkHOST
The boycott so severely damaged the rail industry across the U.S. that it positively shifted the power balance toward unions.
Rob MarkHOST
Pullman rail car tycoon George M. Pullman of Chicago refused to negotiate with his workers, most of whom were already working 16-hour days.
EricHOST
Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894.
EricHOST
President Grover Cleveland, after breaking the American Railway Union with considerable violence and loss of life, signed a bill making the first Monday in September a national holiday for American workers.
EricHOST
It was a blatant attempt to win back public support after using federal troops to break the Pullman Strike earlier that summer.
EricHOST
So the songs of the worker continue.
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