The Great Northern Strike Hits the Seattle Waterfront
A massive railway strike brings the Great Northern line to a standstill, leaving passengers and freight stranded while management and the union lock horns.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Great Northern railroad strike was officially felt last night on their coast lines, and the whole system is tied up from St. Paul to Seattle. Hardly a telegraph wire is in operation over most of the lines. The strike was ordered with such secrecy that not an hour before it was time to move the officials had not a suspicion that it was to happen. When the time came to take out the east-bound passenger train, the mail and baggage car was put in front instead of the engine, and the crew refused to couple the rest of the train. The local lodge of the American Railway Union has declared a boycott on the Great Northern on account of its treatment of the car cleaners and repairers in this city last March.
“Shut up, you scab.”
This 1894 labor action reflects the historical friction between massive railway monopolies and the workers who kept the infrastructure of the American West running. Today, similar tensions persist in the Pacific Northwest as logistics workers and transit employees navigate the balance between corporate profitability and fair labor practices.
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