 
further, the character of strikes changed radically. 
through the depression years that preceded 1886, strikes had mostly been 
in resistance to wage cuts. 
now, with the beginnings of business recovery, they became above all 
strikes for power over such issues as the hours of labor, hiring and firing, 
the organization of work, and the arbitrary power of foremen and 
superintendents. 
the wave began late in 1885 with "spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized 
masses." 
typical was a strike for the ten-hour day in the saginaw valley in 
michigan. 
the legislature had passed a ten-hour law which proved unenforceable. 
in response, with little previous organization, the predominantly polish 
and american workers in the lumber and shingle mills struck for an immediate 
ten-hour day with no reduction in pay. 
the strikers marched in a body from mill to mill, demanding that the men 
quit work, and shut down the entire lumber industry, turning off steam and 
banking fires, including seventeen shingle mills, sixty-one lumber mills, and 
fifty-eight salt blocks. 
although the employers imported more than fifty pinkerton detectives and a 
large body of militia was poised to intervene, the strike was won after two 
months. 
the workers on jay gould's southwestern railroad system exemplified this 
movement. 
they had discovered their power in previous strikes and had developed 
their own organization and coordination. 
yet they still were subject to the arbitrary power of their employers, 
their wages constantly cut or chisled, arbitrarily transferred from one job to 
another, harassed by local railroad officials, and beset by grievances on 
which they could get no answer. 
when one of their members was fired for attending a union meeting, even 
though he had been given permission, the strike they had long felt inevitable 
broke out march 6th, 1886. 
