The Great Northern Strike Ends
After an eighteen-day standstill that paralyzed the Northwest, President James J. Hill and the American Railway Union reach an uneasy truce.
After being tied up for eighteen days, almost completely from end to end, the Great Northern system will now resume work, the great strike being declared off tonight. It is practically a victory for the American Railway Union and President Debs, although the commercial bodies of the two cities were largely responsible for the result. Mr. Hill was pronounced in favor of arbitration all along and agreed to any system of arbitration if the men would resume work. Finally, the committee got them to meet this afternoon and as a result the strike has been declared off. The 4,500 miles of track will be opened for business by over 8,000 employees, and the entire Northwest will be released from the freight and passenger blockade that has oppressed it for over two weeks.
“The laborers who were at work clearing away the landslides on the shore line near Edmonds were flocking into Superintendent Copeland's office, in this city, yesterday... they related their grievances. They were getting $1.75 per day and were charged $4.50 per week for board.”
This 1894 labor action was a major chapter in the rise of Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union. It highlights the brutal reality of the era’s labor disputes, where transportation workers were treated as interchangeable 'floating' labor with dismal conditions and little job security, mirroring modern debates about the gig economy and the rights of workers in essential logistics infrastructure.
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