Prosecution: Andrew Carnegie And The Strike At Homestead

Andrew Carnegie is a steel plant owner who claims to support unions and the working man. His charge is that he ignored the legitimate grievances of his employees at his plant in Homestead Pennsylvania and that his neglect contributed to the death of several of his employees during a strike at Homestead in June of 1892 and that he should be held accountable. Andrew Carnegie has dealt with strikes at his plants before. One strike was at his plant in Braddock Pennsylvania where he settled with the workers by agreeing to higher pay but without input from the Union, essentially ruining it. The union at Homestead was one of the last unions in any of his plants. Leading up to the strike at Homestead, Andrew Carnegie left for a vacation in Scotland. During this time he left plant owner Frick in charge. Frick openly hated unions and lowered the wages at

Frick hired 300 pinkertons who are armed guards and also built a fence around the plant. The Prosecution's first witness was Hugh O'Donnell. He had been working at the Homestead plant since before Andrew Carnegie owned it. He was one of the workers that had gone on strike. He stated that under Carnegie's management, life was worse for employees while Carnegie was making an obscene amount of money. There were lots of horrible burn injuries because of a new method of steel production in the factory using coke. Many workers became deaf. Under Frick’s management the workers wages were lowered from 26 dollars to 23 dollars per month. He also hired the pinkertons to guard the plant from rioting and fired workers. O’Donnel said that Carnegie is at fault because he gave Frick power and allowed him to do his dirty work for him. The second witness was Sylvia Plucinski, a Polish immigrant whose husband was