The power of the workers was demonstrated as follows: workers have a lot of popular support, workers from different industries were willing to work together, workers had so much power that they could stop and even stop the economy, the workers were determined to oppose government forces even if it is with violence.
Everything originated because the railways announced salary cuts, the company did not accept the demands of the workers, so they decided to prevent the railroad from functioning until the salary decision was changed.
I believe a majority of major battles happened in these places because the British had control of them at some point. New York also served as the British base of operations so they probably wanted to break Britain's hold on these cities.
