Friday marked the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, a workplace disaster that cost 146 people their lives and launched the modern labor movement. The same hard fought rights workers earned over the last century are under attack today. This edition of the Battleground Bulletin discusses why unions are as important in 2011 as they were in 1911.
As we celebrate Women's History Month 2011, we also approach the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that took the lives of 146 people, mostly young women from Italian and Jewish immigrant families living in New York City. In the wake of this disaster in 1911, the people held mass demonstrations, politicians held hearings and citizens demanded new workplace safety laws to ensure that this kind of tragedy would never happen again.
And safety laws came to be, but so too did much more social progress. Both the burgeoning labor movement and the women's suffrage movement gained much needed momentum after 1911. In 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed giving women the right to vote. In 1935, FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), granting collective bargaining rights to private sector workers. It is notable that the NLRA is named for Robert Wagner, who was President of the New York State Senate in 1911, and that the bill signing was witnessed by Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins, and that the bill signing was witnessed by Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins, who also witnessed the Triangle fire firsthand.
As governors and state legislators attack workers rights in 2011, they are trying to turn back the clock on 100 years of progress. As in 1911, women workers remain most vulnerable to these attacks, particularly in the public service.
