What the Triangle Shirtwaist fire means for workers now by By Hilda L. Solis

[Better with a Union Man]

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/...triangl...story.html


David Karp/ ASSOCIATED PRESS - Mourners honor victims of New York's 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire at the Mount Richmond Cemetery in Staten Island on March 1. 22 of the fire's 146 casualties were buried in the cemetery.


By Hilda L. Solis, Friday, March 18, 8:35 PM (Hilda L. Solis is the U.S. secretary of labor.)

A century ago this week, in Lower Manhattan, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea at the Greenwich Village townhouse of her friend, the socialite Margaret Morgan Norrie. They were interrupted by clanging fire truck bells. Then they heard the anguished screams: “Don’t jump!”

They raced out of the townhouse and ran toward the commotion: a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, just off Washington Square. Flames and black smoke shot from the top floors, and as they watched in shock, young girls and women, some alone, some clutching hands, inched up to the windows’ ledges — and jumped to their deaths.

Perkins would describe the scene in lectures later: “They couldn’t hold on any longer. There was no place to go. The fire was between them and any means of exit. It’s that awful choice people talk of — what kind of choice to make?” She added: “I shall never forget the frozen horror that came across as we stood with our hands on our throats watching that horrible sight, knowing that there was no help.”

The sewing factory employed more than 500 people, who worked long hours for low wages, in wretched and unsanitary conditions. They turned out “shirtwaists” — blouses with puffed sleeves and tight bodices popularized by the “Gibson Girl.” The factory owners had locked the fire-escape doors. The seamstresses were trapped when fire raced through the sweatshop just before closing on March 25, 1911.

FULL story at link.
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[jaxx]

I am glad to see the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster getting media attention during this time of the repub governors trying to destroy what the unions have brought to the workers. Workers had no rights then, and people need to understand we can't go backwards.

[Cha]

I appreciate very much having a Sec of Labor who is actually for the Laborers!

"In less than 20 minutes, 146 people, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls, were dead. The last six victims were officially identified just a few weeks ago. Triangle outraged the public and offered a grisly example of how powerless workers were without collective bargaining, because unionized garment workers received better pay and had safer conditions. And it galvanized Frances Perkins.

Twenty-two years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her secretary of labor, the first woman to serve as a Cabinet secretary. During her 12-year tenure, she directed the formulation and implementation of the Social Security Act, one of the most important pieces of social legislation in our history. Among other extraordinary accomplishments, she helped create unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, and the legislation that guarantees the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. She also established the department’s Labor Standards Bureau, a precursor to what is now the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Perkins clearly had the Triangle victims in mind as she weaved the nation’s social safety net.

The teagaggers taking their cues from Kochs want to throw all that away.

[RoyGBiv]

There are some images from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire disaster in our gallery.

Be warned that there are images of victims in coffins.

http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/ez....php?cat=6

[nofurylike]

thank you so much for posting this, Better with a Union Man.

[mr1956]

If you have access to Netflix, there is a PBS documentary "American Experience: Triangle Fire" available to watch instantly. I watched it last week and was struck by how relevant the event remains 100 years later.