chris tanzu
2011-03-21 12:18:43 UTC
Why do think worker forma union
A to rip the governet off
B to give lazy people jobs.
C to be to install socialism
D because they where tired of getting killed
Two years later, when a fire started in a wicker wastebasket, many workers didn’t stand a chance: 146 died, most of them young Italian and Jewish women newly arrived in America; 17 were men. It was the worst disaster in New York City until 9/11.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, on March 25, 1911, is a milestone in labor history that also marked the start of a progressive era in U.S. politics. Unions were ascendant; so was the idea that women should have the right to vote, and that all workers deserved the protection of a vigilant government that regulates how businesses operate.
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One hundred years later, the centennial of the tragedy is bittersweet. Today, only 7 percent of American workers in private industry belong to a union, and public employee unions are under siege. The worst conditions of the Triangle factory may no longer exist in the United States, but the lowest-skilled workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, are still exploited, earning low pay in shabby sweatshops and factories. Overseas factories, where many American goods are produced, get away with hazardous conditions and poor compensation that would have been familiar to a Triangle worker 100 years ago.
Triangle exemplified the rapaciousness of the era: hundreds of workers sitting over sewing machines at narrow tables, new immigrants ripe for exploitation. Forget overtime. Short breaks were monitored. No talking or joking allowed to break the speed of production.
In addition to the locked doors, piles of flammable fabric scraps overflowed wastebaskets. The 1911 fire was ignited by a match or cigarette tossed carelessly amid the debris on the eighth floor, and spread rapidly through the open factory floors above it. It was a 10-story, fireproof building — it still stands today in the West Village, at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place — but inside were oil-stained floors and rooms crammed with machinery and wood tables set close together.