merican Railway Union was no more.The use of the injunction against the workers in the Pullman strike became a powerful weapon against labor unions. The ruling of the Supreme Court meant that management no longer had to rely on violence to break a strike. All they had to do was claim that the striking, picketing, or boycotting was hurting profits. Ever since the Pullman strike, as soon as an industry-wide strike was called, it was followed by, in most cases, a state or federal court order. “One judge prohibited a craft federation from promoting or endorsing a strike ‘in any manner by letters, printed or other circulars, telegrams or telephones, word of mouth, oral persuasion, or suggestion, or through interviews to be published in the newspapers,” (Meltzer 158). This took away a worker's first amendment right to free speech. This strike made clear that the forces of the government could be used by the side of the management. Lawrence Textile Strike: 1912, Lawrence, Massachusetts, Textile Industry“Upon that day [first day of the strike], in the Washington mill of the so-called Woolen Trust, a handful of Italian operatives had gone to draw their pay envelopes. Of all the mingled peoples of Lawrence, none are so humble as the Italians, none so eager for work at any price, and none so ill paid. They are the last and poorest of the successive wave of people from Europe which have been surging upon our shores during the last thirty years. When these people opened their envelopes, they found that there was a reduction of pay corresponding to two hours of work in a week - the price perhaps of three or four loaves of bread,” (Lens 102). After receiving their pay, the enraged men went parading down the halls getting hundreds to join them. They broke a few windows in the factory and paraded down the main streets of the town, beginning the strike.The cause of this strike was wage cuts. The state had just pa...
