page_title: Timeline of labour issues and events
section_title: 1890s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of labour issues and events / 1800–99 / 1890s
caption_attribution_description: English: Emblem of the International Longshoremen's Association (USA)
context_page_description: Timeline of trade union history
context_section_description: 1890 (United States)
  United Mine Workers of America founded.
  1890 (United States)
  United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Strike occurred; the union demanded an eight-hour work day.
  25 July 1890 (United States)
  New York garment workers won the right to unionize after a seven-month strike. They secured agreements for a closed shop, and firing of all strikebreakers.
  1891 (United States)
  Savannah, Georgia, Black Labourers' Strike occurred.
  1891 (United States)
  Tennessee Miners' Strike occurred.
  1892 (United States)
  International Longshoremen's Association founded.
  1892 (United States)
  International Seamen's Union founded.
  1892 (United States)
  New Orleans General Strike occurred.
  6 July 1892 (United States)
  Homestead Strike: Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for the introduction of strikebreakers, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel-workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three Pinkertons surrendered and were set upon and beaten by a mob of townspeople, most of them women. Seven guards and eleven strikers and spectators were shot to death.
  11 July 1892 (United States)
  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892: Striking miners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho dynamited the Frisco Mill, leaving it in ruins.
  August 1892 (United States)
  Buffalo Switchmen's Strike collapses after two weeks when 8,000 New York State militia enter the city and peer unions fail to come to the strikers' aid.
  1893 (United States)
  American Railway Union founded.
  1893 (United States)
  Western Federation of Miners founded.
  1893 (United States)
  Federal court in Louisiana rules that the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to unions and finds that sympathy strikes restrain trade.
  1893 (United States)
  National Civic Federation founded.
  1893 (United States)
  Unions helped win the passage of the Safety Appliance Act. Among other things, the Act outlawed the "old man-killer link and pin coupler" by railroads.
  1894 (United Kingdom)
  History of Trade Unionism, the influential book by Sidney and Beatrice Webb is first published.
  1894 (United States)
  Coxey's Army marched on Washington, D.C.
  7 February 1894 (United States)
  In Cripple Creek, Colorado, miners went on strike when mine owners announced an increase from eight to ten hours per day, with no increase in wages. This strike marked perhaps the only time in American history that a state militia was called out to protect miners from sheriff's deputies.
  21 April – June 1894 (United States)
  Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike of 1894 -- A two-month nationwide strike by miners of hard coal in the United States.  This unsuccessful strike almost destroyed the United Mine Workers union.
  11 May – 10 July 1894 (United States)
  Pullman Strike: A nation-wide strike against the Pullman Company begins with a wildcat walkout on 11 May after wages are drastically reduced.  On 5 July, the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson Park was set ablaze, and seven buildings were burned to the ground. The mobs burned and looted railroad cars and fought police in the streets, until 10 July, when 14,000 federal and state troops finally succeeded in putting down the strike, killing 34 American Railway Union members.  Leaders of the strike, including Eugene Debs, were imprisoned for violating injunctions, causing disintegration of the union.
  1895 (France)
  The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), was formed. This French union is the oldest confederation still in existence.
  April 1895 (United States)
  American Industrial Union established by former American Railway Union Vice President George W. Howard. The union proves to be short-lived, disappearing in the second half of 1896.
  June 1895 (United States)
  U.S. Supreme Court rules in In re Debs to uphold an injunction against the Pullman Strikers on the grounds that the federal government is empowered to regulate interstate commerce.
  1895 (United States)
  Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance founded.
  1895 (United States)
  Haverhill, Massachusetts, Show Strike occurred.
  21 September 1896 (United States)
  The state militia was sent to Leadville, Colorado 
caption: International Longshoremen's Union banner
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