Pullman Strike

The Pullman Strike was a nationwide conflict in the United States which, in the summer of 1894, pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) and employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company against the company's ownership and the federal government of the United States under Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages. Most factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the planned worker community of Pullman. The industrialist George Pullman had designed it as a model community, but he controlled it thoroughly. When his company laid off workers and lowered wages, it did not reduce rents, and the workers called for a strike. They had not formed a union.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman Strike