The Great Strike Of 1877: Case Study

Julio Aleman
HIUS 222
Aug. 26, 2014
The Great Strike of 1877
The railroad companies made decisions to cut their employees pay so that they can make more money and grow. They made the claim that they were not obligated to pay their employees a certain rate of money for their labor. The corporation has every right to govern how much they pay their employees. When they dropped their employees pay, the employees fought for rights that they did not have. The corporation for which they have worked, though it may be ill-managed, and even dishonestly managed, is under no obligation to employ them at any rate of compensation which is not acceptable to both parties. But a strange hallucination seems to have seized the men, who fancy, because they have worked for the
The fire was returned and several people were killed. This is simply a revolt against law and order. How soon it will end, we cannot tell. The workers were working under really dangerous conditions where 200 people died every year and 30,000 injured. Also they were not payed well and many were struggling to make ends meet. They received previous pay cuts and now a 10% pay cut was imposed on them that kindled the fire for a strike. I believe that neither the corporations or the workers were without fault. I don’t agree with the workers attacking the police officers but I also don’t agree with the way that the corporations exploited their employees. I would side with the workers because of the abuse that they had to endure but I believe that the corporations had the strongest argument because they had every right to pay their employees whatever rate they believed was necessary and because they were never obligated to pay their employees a certain amount. Also they had every right to govern their industry the way that they wanted to. The workers were also holding up the railroads and fighting the police force. I believe that the corporations had the