Sunday, March 27, 2011

Remembering Triangle Shirtwaist

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was 100 years ago. Dozens of young women and girls died because of managers who didn't give a shit about workers' personal well-being. Seems that not so much has really changed.

The video below offers a heart-wrenching summary of what happened that day in New York, why unions were soon after able to push through some basic improvements for workers, and why the same and simliar tragedies have repeated themselves in outsourced factories overseas.

Too many people are willing to let the gains made in the last two or three generations slip away. Or more accurately, be taken from us by a coalition of an overclass, a large and breathtakingly misinformed swath of the electorate, and the Republican Party they support. An ineffective and ambivalent Democratic Party completes the picture

Watch this video and remember that unions created the middle class. Some Republicans, especially these new shits elected by teabaggers, are determined to strip away what made the middle class possible; minimum wages, pensions, child labor laws, social security, and more.

They want to take us back to the days and the working conditions of Triangle Shirtwaist.

2 comments:

  1. The holocost was about race and the Shirtwaist Factory fire was about class. Visible reminders of untold human misery underneath. Will we make the same mistake again?

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