Remembering the Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire
March 25 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire. Some 146 workers, most of them women and half in their teens, died in this tragedy. This sparked an upsurge in the fight for safe working conditions, and in building unions to win that fight.
A century ago, the conditions of work in transit were no better than those in the garment sweatshops. What ultimately made the difference in both transit and garment was building unions. Unions brought safer conditions, higher pay, and innovations like pensions and health care.
The recent upsurge in Wisconsin is a reminder that we can take none of this for granted. We have to fight today to defend what has been gained in the past hundred years and the unions that prior generations built to make those gains.