STABILIZATION, 1888-1897


The Great Upheaval of 1886 had, as we saw, suddenly swelled the
membership of trade unions; consequently, during several years
following, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growth
was bound to proceed at a slower rate.

The statistics of strikes during the later eighties, like the figures of
membership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 the
labor movement had entered a more or less quiet stage. Most prominent
among the strikes was the one of 60,000 iron and steel workers in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successful
conclusion against a strong combination of employers. The Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its power
about this time and was able in 1889, by the mere threat of a strike, to
dictate terms to the Carnegie Steel Company. The most noted and last
great strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotive
engineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. The
strike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods of
locomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were made
by the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system of
classification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, the
Knights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia
& Reading Railroad Company, employing 80,000 anthracite miners, and the
strike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers and
firemen belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods had
filled their places and, in retaliation, the former Reading engineers
and firemen now took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that on
March 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employes. The