In 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company outside Chicago, Illinois, struck to protest the firing of one-third of the company’s workers and a 30 percent wage. The strike won the support of the American Railway Union, which began a boycott and strike of railroads using Pullman cars. Over the next few months about 260,000 workers walked off the job. The railroad companies supported Pullman and enlisted the aid of the Federal government, which sent troops, who fought deadly battles with the workers. The companies won a court injunction against the strikers, and when the American Federation of Labor ordered their members back to work, the strike was defeated. One result was a search for a more peaceful mechanism to settle railroad labor disputes.