Unfortunately, Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Mill suffered because of the lack of railroad business. Carnegie went from having pennies to being one of the richest people because of the steel industry. Homestead had terrible working conditions: no indoor plumbing and …show more content…
There are two activist campaigns: Working Families for Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch. Working Families for Wal-Mart frames supporters as average families pursuing the American Dream while opponents such as Wal-Mart Watch are portrayed as out-of-touch elitists (Massengill,2013, 49). In comparison to the Homestead Mill, Wal-Mart is a huge corporation with thousands of employees. The union workers would relate to people who are a part of Wal-Mart Watch, who portray the corporation as “driving local stores out of business, pressuring local town officials or encouraging workers to join state health rolls, Wal-Mart has a negative impact on local communities” (Massengill, 2013, 60). On the other hand I view workers as having the idea of Working Families for Wal-Mart who focus on the positives of what Wal-Mart does for average families. “There are two kinds of Americans- those who work for a living and those who tax for a living. Wal-Mart is for those who work for a living” (Massengill, 2013, 51). Wal-Mart Watch used a more civilized form of protesting than union workers during the Homestead Strike. “WMW had used paid picketers to protest a local Wal-Mart- and paid them less than the average wages of the Wal-Mart workers employed inside” (Massengill, 2013, 55). This just showed how hyprotcritical WMW is and how they are concerned with their own interest and not the publics. People against Wal-Mart say the business is taking out other local businesses, but really it is only there to benefit the community by providing affordable costs. Wal-Mart also gives back to the local community by donating products or allowing teams or clubs to fundraise outside the store (Massengill, 2013, 59). “Unions only help union members and thats it,” but Wal-Mart is helping millions of people (Massengill, 2013, 55). The difference between the Homestead strike and Wal-Mart wars is today we create imagined societies. These societies include: “those