Why Strikes Weren't Successful

The main reason Union strikes were not successful is because they were always disbanded before any real pressure was put on their employer. An example is the Pullman Strike. The employees of the Pullman luxury car factory went on strike because they wanted their wages to be increased and for there to be more freedom in their town. The Railroad Union refused to handle Pullman cars and so President Cleaveland stepped in and suppressed the strike. The workers did not get what they asked for because the government didn't allow the strikers to do anything drastic enough to coerce their employer to give in to them. A similar thing happens in the Haymarket Riot and Homestead Strike; the militia interfered in order to break up the violence and take away any power the strikers may have by implementing martial law, arresting strikers, or even shooting people. Without power, strikers were never going to be able to make their employers give into them.
Strikers also lacked power because strikes were not supported by the general public. The public viewed strikers as crazy, violent anarchists that have no morals and will do anything to get their way. Strikes always result in death and it is very possible that an innocent civilian will be harmed, so in most cases the public has no reason to support strikers.
The main way that strikers try to get their employers to increase their wages or do what ever they are fighting for, is to have all the workers in one company to stop working. This will automatically halt business and make the employer desperate to please the employees so they will come back. However, during that time, there was always lots of immigrants that would be happy to work in horrible conditions for long hours for almost no pay. This meant that it didn't matter if the strikers left for good because the employer knew there were always more people he could hire that didn't need their wages increased. Therefore, once again, the strikers had no power. An example of this occurred in the Homestead Strike when scabs replaced all strikers in the steel factory. The main reason strikers were not successful at this time was because they were unable to become more powerful that their employer.