Around Burlington: Burlington rail strike created long-lasting community rift
Bob Hansen
for The Hawk Eye
The 1922 “Shopmen’s Strike” is one of those misdeeds of history Burlington would prefer to forget. The walkout of employees at the railroad “shops” was to take place against the backdrop of the nationwide rail strikes of 1922. But in Burlington, this labor dispute took on an especially ugly tint.
The rail history leading up to the dispute gave a hint the interests of labor and management was diverging disastrously and a day of reckoning was to come. In 1922, that day arrived because the nation’s railroads had just been returned to private ownership after being taken over by the federal government during World War I.