Labor Day

About seven miles from where I grew up on the southside of Chicago is a community known as Pullman. Now absorbed as a neighborhood in the City of Chicago, but in the late 19th Century, George Pullman the builder of the Pullman Railroad cars fashion an independent "ideal" community for the workers at his plant. He provided housing - different streets and different kind of homes for the various strata of workers and management. He had his own newspaper and prevented other papers from being sold in his community, he build one church in the community for the workers. In the center of the community, he built a hotel which is still there today, named after his daughter Florence. It was a real company town.

But the workers were becoming disenchanted with his paternalism, exploitation, and oppressive nature of the community. In late June of 1894, the workers boycotted Pullman, leading to the two month long "Pullman Strike" that idled 125,000 railroad workers nationwide. Grover Cleveland ended the strike by sending the US Army and US Marshals into break it up - which they did after killing 13 workers, wounding 57 people. 6,000 workers did $ 340,000 in property damage (6.8 million in today's dollars).

In an effort to make amends with the labor unions of the day and to stave off further strikes and protests, Grover Cleveland proposed a national holiday known as Labor Day. It passed through Congress without opposition and was enacted into law in 1894. For his part, Grover Cleveland would lose the next election. Pullman would die a few years later and in 1898 the town of Pullman became part of the city of Chicago.

The Labor Movement would continue to make great strides for the American workers, providing them a decent wage for a day's work, workplace safety standards, and benefits that we take for granted today. But we are in a new age. In our global economy, what role will labor unions play? What hope is there for the American Worker? I have alot of questions, but few answers these days.