American Railway Union
Launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893, the ARU won an early victory in a strike on the Great Northern Railroad in the summer of 1894.
The group's blacklisted and dispirited remnants finally disbanded the organization via amalgamation into the Social Democracy of America (SDA) at its founding convention in June 1897.
[3] This preparatory meeting, chaired by George W. Howard of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, former Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors, elected a three-person committee to write a constitution and by-laws for the new organization,[3] which was formally launched at a week-long convention attended by 24 delegates representing many of the numerous railway brotherhoods held at Chicago's Greene Hotel from April 11–17, 1893.
[9] There the assembled delegates heard a lengthy keynote address delivered by ARU President Gene Debs before adjourning for additional meetings in secret session.
[10] The American Railway Union organized all classes of employees of the road in a strike action lasting 18 days and forcing the company to arbitration of its unilateral wage cuts.
The arbitrators, consisting of businessmen from St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, found in favor of the Great Northern workers, thereby pressuring the company to roll back its wage cuts.
The ARU's constitutionally-required biannual convention was forthcoming and delegates representing the 465 locals of the union—which claimed a total membership of about 150,000—assembled in the city to take up matters of concern to the organization.
[14] On June 21, 1894, two days prior to adjournment of the convention, the Pullman Committee reported that the company continued to refuse to arbitrate its unilateral wage cuts.
[17] The railway managers took to the courts for relief, gaining a sweeping injunction against the ARU which was served upon union president Debs on July 2.
[17] Terms of the injunction prohibited the union from sending out any telegram or letter or issuing any order which would have the effect of inducing or persuading railroad workers to withhold their service in pursuit of the strike action.
[17] The rationale for this legal action lay in the fact that the Mail was transported by rail—transport which was interrupted when trains including Pullman cars were stopped in their tracks.
Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which ruled it illegal for any business combination to restrain trade or commerce, an injunction was issued on July 2 enjoining the ARU leadership from "compelling or inducing by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, railway employees to refuse or fail to perform their duties".
