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Remember! Important history...
On this date exactly 100 years ago, a factory fire in a New York City high rise building took the lives of 146 workers. Most were young women, in their teens or early twenties, Jewish or Italian immigrants struggling to help their families. Factory work at that time was the sort of thing from which the term "sweatshop" is derived. A working day was ten or twelve hours long, and the work week was six days, though Saturday might be shortened a bit. A few places gave Jewish employees Saturday off but demanded that they work on Sunday to make up for it.
Anyway, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was one such sweatshop. Employees operated sewing or cutting machines to make ladies' blouses ("shirtwaists") and occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building. It was a Saturday, between 4 and 5 pm, and the workers were just finishing up their day when a fire broke out. The exact cause was never determined, but it spread quickly through all three floors. In the panic, the outside fire escape collapsed, dumping many to their deaths. Two inside stairwells failed to save lives because the doors were kept locked. Ostensibly this was to keep union organizers from entering the shop, and to keep workers from leaving the area during the day. By the time a supervisor with the key was located, the stairwell thus opened was already filled with smoke and unusable. Some sought to escape the flames by jumping to their deaths from broken windows. Most suffocated or were trampled without ever getting to the roof or a window.
The city fire department arrived too late, and had no ladders to reach above the sixth floor in any case. The tragic aftermath left New York stunned and grieving for weeks, and some of the bodies were not officially identified until nearly a hundred years later, but were buried as "unknown" under a memorial to the workers who died that day.
It's a terrible story. The factory owners were fined for locking the stairwells (all of $75 or so) and ultimately a court awarded some money to the families of each identified victim, but nothing really large.
The emotional and political impact of this event, however, turned around legal attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining in the US. ILGWU, the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, came into its own after that and was quickly followed by other worker negotiating groups and legal representative groups. Laws were passed recognizing the right of workers to join unions and to delegate negotiating rights to such unions. The courts eventually recognized the right of workers to bargain and to go on strike against an employer who violated contractual agreements or refused to negotiate in good faith.
For most of the 20th century, labor rights were accepted and recognized, though sometimes grudgingly. Workers received fair wages, profit sharing benefits, leave time with pay, and more reasonable work weeks. Yes, you can thank the labor unions for the concept of the "weekend." There was no such thing in the 19th century or earlier. (Just Sunday, which was often only a half day off to attend church.)
Now, on the hundredth anniversary of that ugly fire, we see politicians, employers, and even working voters trying to take away collective bargaining rights and void the contracts of public workers in an increasing number of states. They have forgotten the lessons of history, and seek to return to the old ways, when it was "every man for himself" and "dog eat dog" in the workplace, and employers could demand whatever they chose and kick an employee out without justification if she dared to question them. Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and New Hampshire are all trying to invalidate state employees' work agreements and bargaining rights.
OK, you assholes who voted for these tea party goons, sit there and feel smug about it. But guess what? When they're done stripping the public employees of their bargaining rights, benefits, and pensions, they won't stop there. Remember that the tea party doesn't stand for individual freedom from taxes so much as it stands for reduced regulation and taxation of corporate business. Private sector workers will be next, and no amount of union contract or representation will help. When they come for you, there will be no one left to complain. Just remember that when it happens, morons. You asked for it. You begged to be trampled into the mud and treated like manure for the benefit of capitalist profit that goes to the hyperwealthy and stays with them.
Economic recovery? There's no recovery. Sure retail sales are up. But did you check to see what's selling? Luxury goods, that's what. Nieman-Marcus is doing fine. Walmart is losing money because rich people don't shop there, and the rest of us can't afford to buy much. About 20% of the US population accounts for 70% or more of the discretionary spending. Those people are the wealthy, who have felt little pinch in this recession because they still got their million dollar bonuses and other perks, even after running their corporate asses right into the ground. These are the people the tea party really represents. They don't want to pay taxes. They don't want a government that might actually regulate their greed or business practices, or catch them in their frauds. They want to be able to rob their customers and employees with impunity. Think about this before you vote again for one of these so-called Republicans who are really nothing but carpet baggers. They haven't even as much heart as Ebenezer Scrooge had before he was visited by those three ghosts.
Anyway, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was one such sweatshop. Employees operated sewing or cutting machines to make ladies' blouses ("shirtwaists") and occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building. It was a Saturday, between 4 and 5 pm, and the workers were just finishing up their day when a fire broke out. The exact cause was never determined, but it spread quickly through all three floors. In the panic, the outside fire escape collapsed, dumping many to their deaths. Two inside stairwells failed to save lives because the doors were kept locked. Ostensibly this was to keep union organizers from entering the shop, and to keep workers from leaving the area during the day. By the time a supervisor with the key was located, the stairwell thus opened was already filled with smoke and unusable. Some sought to escape the flames by jumping to their deaths from broken windows. Most suffocated or were trampled without ever getting to the roof or a window.
The city fire department arrived too late, and had no ladders to reach above the sixth floor in any case. The tragic aftermath left New York stunned and grieving for weeks, and some of the bodies were not officially identified until nearly a hundred years later, but were buried as "unknown" under a memorial to the workers who died that day.
It's a terrible story. The factory owners were fined for locking the stairwells (all of $75 or so) and ultimately a court awarded some money to the families of each identified victim, but nothing really large.
The emotional and political impact of this event, however, turned around legal attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining in the US. ILGWU, the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, came into its own after that and was quickly followed by other worker negotiating groups and legal representative groups. Laws were passed recognizing the right of workers to join unions and to delegate negotiating rights to such unions. The courts eventually recognized the right of workers to bargain and to go on strike against an employer who violated contractual agreements or refused to negotiate in good faith.
For most of the 20th century, labor rights were accepted and recognized, though sometimes grudgingly. Workers received fair wages, profit sharing benefits, leave time with pay, and more reasonable work weeks. Yes, you can thank the labor unions for the concept of the "weekend." There was no such thing in the 19th century or earlier. (Just Sunday, which was often only a half day off to attend church.)
Now, on the hundredth anniversary of that ugly fire, we see politicians, employers, and even working voters trying to take away collective bargaining rights and void the contracts of public workers in an increasing number of states. They have forgotten the lessons of history, and seek to return to the old ways, when it was "every man for himself" and "dog eat dog" in the workplace, and employers could demand whatever they chose and kick an employee out without justification if she dared to question them. Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and New Hampshire are all trying to invalidate state employees' work agreements and bargaining rights.
OK, you assholes who voted for these tea party goons, sit there and feel smug about it. But guess what? When they're done stripping the public employees of their bargaining rights, benefits, and pensions, they won't stop there. Remember that the tea party doesn't stand for individual freedom from taxes so much as it stands for reduced regulation and taxation of corporate business. Private sector workers will be next, and no amount of union contract or representation will help. When they come for you, there will be no one left to complain. Just remember that when it happens, morons. You asked for it. You begged to be trampled into the mud and treated like manure for the benefit of capitalist profit that goes to the hyperwealthy and stays with them.
Economic recovery? There's no recovery. Sure retail sales are up. But did you check to see what's selling? Luxury goods, that's what. Nieman-Marcus is doing fine. Walmart is losing money because rich people don't shop there, and the rest of us can't afford to buy much. About 20% of the US population accounts for 70% or more of the discretionary spending. Those people are the wealthy, who have felt little pinch in this recession because they still got their million dollar bonuses and other perks, even after running their corporate asses right into the ground. These are the people the tea party really represents. They don't want to pay taxes. They don't want a government that might actually regulate their greed or business practices, or catch them in their frauds. They want to be able to rob their customers and employees with impunity. Think about this before you vote again for one of these so-called Republicans who are really nothing but carpet baggers. They haven't even as much heart as Ebenezer Scrooge had before he was visited by those three ghosts.