Burlington railroad strike of 1888

The Burlington railroad strike of 1888 was a labor action of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers against the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

The strike was the result of labor-management tensions that dated back to at least 1862.[1] The president of the CB&Q Railroad, Charles Elliott Perkins, was notably opposed to labor unions. In May 1886, he had fired all known members of the Knights of Labor working for roads under his control.[2] Now the company sought to eliminate all unionization of workers on the CB&Q. When the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen demanded that the railroad honor its own work rules and implement a uniform pay scale that did not discriminate against newly hired workers, Perkins refused.

Under the leadership of Peter M. Arthur the union's 15,000 members struck at 4:00 am on February 27, 1888.[3] Some 97 percent of the locomotive engineers and brakemen walked out, even though the union represented only 65 percent of the workers.[4] The effects were far-reaching, for the CB&Q ran some 5,500 miles of track in eight states, from Chicago to Denver.[5]

Perkins brought in strikebreakers and Pinkerton agents.[6] On March 5, the union asked unionized workers on other railroads to boycott the CB&Q by refusing to load freight onto its trains; Perkins went to federal court on March 8,[7] to seek an injunction that would require the other railroads to load freight onto the CB&Q. The federal court issued the injunction on March 13, and almost every aspect of labor relations on every railroad engaged in interstate commerce came under court control.

The strike was effectively broken within a month, but it lingered in some western states for another 10 months. After several workers had been killed in violent episodes,[8] the two unions officially ended their strike unilaterally in January 1889. One effect of the strike was the radicalization of a local leader in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen named Eugene V. Debs, and the beginning of his political career.

References

  1. ↑ The Burlington strike By Charles H. Frisbie, 1889, page 21
  2. ↑ Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1982, p. 74.
  3. ↑ The Burlington strike, by Charles H. Frisbie, 1889, page 7
  4. ↑ Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Van Tine, Warren R. Labor Leaders in America. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1987, p. 100-101.
  5. ↑ "GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE - Burlington". catskillarchive.com. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
  6. ↑ Los Angeles Herald, Volume 30, Number 1, 3 April 1888
  7. ↑
    • Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1982, p. 76.
  8. ↑ Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age, edited by Leonard C. Schlup, James G. Ryan, page 405
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