Sylvis. At the time the NLU contained 300 local unions in 13 states and was the first union to allow women and African Americans to join; this disturbed some members and led to the branching of the union into the Colored National Union and the NLU. Big business owners didn't like the unions and pushed for them to be shut down by Congress and Legislators. Many laws were formed to shut down unions and outlaw them. Many workers protested this but to no effect; labor unions and organizations were closed down.
Workers didn't always rely on unions to make themselves heard. The main way to demonstrate worker's feelings towards something or show that they protested what was happening was just that, a protest, or a strike. The strikes were quickly batted down either by the employer's force or by the worker's need for money to provide for themselves and families. The problem with a strike was that so many people were looking for jobs and more immigrants were coming into the U.S. all the time. That meant that when a worker went on strike there were 4 more to take his place. The greatest strike ever recorded or remembered in our history was the great strike of 1877. This strike is recognized as the first national strike and also the first strike in which the military was involved in order to restore and keep peace. Another strike often remembered is the Pullman Strike. The Pullman Strike, as one author puts it; " was especially important in American perceptions of "the labor problem" of the time." The author tells us how the Pullman Strike is important because it was one of the first strikes to gain what it's objective had been and brought awareness to the people all over. It gained Eugene Debs national attention and converted him to socialism. The Pullman Strike occurred when train conductors across America refused to pull the Pullman luxury boxcars on their train's caravans.