Remembering the Triangle Fire: Why the Left is Urging us to Recall the Event
As any of the articles will let you know, the fire led to a Factory Investigation Commission run by Robert F. Wagner Jr. and Alfred E. Smith, soon to be two major New York political leaders. The fire led to regulation that produced new laws guaranteeing safety standards in factories, as well as major efforts by trade unions to organize the work force to fight for shorter hours and better conditions in the workplace.
Unlike many libertarians, who seem to believe that our modern corporate society needs no regulations of any kind, and that the market alone can address all problems, I too am thankful for the resulting laws that led to new safety regulations, as well as a new age of labor peace in which the cloakmaker unions — as they were then called — signed massive agreements with employers that actually guaranteed both productivity and an avoidance of strikes that benefited industry.
But all of this, I think, does not explain the amount of attention throughout the country to memorializing the Triangle Fire. After all, the conditions existing in 1911 hardly are similar to those in the 21st century United States, although they clearly are more similar to conditions in many Third World countries where much of the manufacturing of clothing now takes place. So what, then, is the explanation? Why does it appear that everywhere you look, every media source is telling you the story of Triangle? Aside from the Civil War — the 150th anniversary of which will soon be upon us — we have not had so much attention on one historical event.
The real reason is the Left’s hegemonic control of the culture industry in this country. Looking back at Triangle gives them a new opportunity to use the event for one reason: to try and ignite a new movement on behalf of unionization of public sector employees, and to argue that the condition of Wisconsin teachers, let us say, is the equivalent of that of the women who worked in the Triangle factory one-hundred years ago!
Look, for example, at the article by CUNY’s labor historian Joshua Freeman, writing in The Nation. Arguing that the fire took place “at a moment of radical challenge to the national structure of power,” Freeman sees an exactly parallel situation today. He writes: “Today, as a cult of deregulation, a rabid ethos of unrestricted capitalism and the ability of firms to play workers in one country against those in another have seemingly sent us careening back in time toward a pre–New Deal regime of labor relations, there is less domestic opposition to sweated labor than 100 years ago (though low-paid workers overseas have been increasingly militant, evident in the fusillade of strikes in China). Periodic waves of moral outrage sweep across college campuses in antisweatshop campaigns, but as an organized force, labor has weakened to the point that the percentage of privately employed workers who belong to a union is now lower than in 1911.”
Rather than try and explore why so many private sector workers no longer relate to unionism, and why its growth has alone been in the public sector, Freeman pleads instead for “recapturing the spirit of the reformers of a century ago, that the world belongs to us, to make it right as we see fit,” which alone he thinks will lead to only “modest improvements.” The world, he says, “needs reinventing.” And speaking in a defeatist mode, he writes that “even the thrilling mobilization of labor and its allies in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana has remained, so far, defensive…not enough even to win incremental advances.”
Then there are the lessons to be learned according to the Communist Party U.S.A., in their newspaper, The People’s World. Their writer points to Rep. Peter King’s hearings on radical Islam in the United States, which it describes as “targeting yet another immigrant community.” And one of other writers asserts that there are “uncomfortable parallels with conditions facing workers today.” Failing to make any distinction between the factory unions of the previous century and the public sector white collar workers today, the writer calls for “saving worker protection programs from Right Wing budget raids, and upholding the right of collective bargaining.”
Indeed, that is the exact same position taken by Mark Levin, producer of the HBO documentary. Appearing at a forum held at NYU, near the site of the fire itself, “the producer of “Triangle: Remembering The Fire” acknowledged the parallels between the event the film depicts and the labor disputes unfolding today. ‘None of us planned for the film to be quite as topical as it is because of what’s happening in Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Indiana, and New Jersey — the debates that we’re seeing about public employees, the future of the labor movement, and the right to collective bargaining. In many ways I was thinking that the ghosts of the fire’s victims wouldn’t believe what they’re witnessing right now — the assault that we’re seeing on worker’s rights and middle class citizens,’ he added. ‘So it had relevance that we never anticipated.’”
If the analogy could not be more explicit, Bruce Raynor, president of Workers United /SEIU, which represents the remnant of workers in the garment industry today, explained it the following way: “The Triangle Shirtwaist fire is probably the single most important event for working people in the history of the city of New York. … One hundred years later we have an America where the governor of Wisconsin feels it’s okay to strip thousands of working people of the right to collectively bargain and to have any say in their working conditions.”
One has to pause in disbelief. Does Raynor and film producer Levin really believe that a teacher today, with high union benefits not enjoyed by private sector workers, who works 9 to 3 with time off, and with three months off in summers, is anywhere near the same boat as those who worked twelve hour days in a New York City sweatshop in 1911? Do bus and train engineers earning salaries sometimes amounting to close to $100,000 a year or more, really think that despite a high cost of living, their conditions are akin to those of the Triangle workers?
And one wonders how NBC, which put the above post on its own website, feels about these claims, and whether they are endorsed by parent company General Electric or the new owners, Comcast. Somehow, the statements do not endorse strikes or organizing in those particular companies, or argue for any analogy to them between the conditions of their workers and those at Triangle a century ago.
So yes, learn about Triangle — and honor the victims and remember their struggles and sacrifice. But don’t be so shortsighted as to try and use the past to draw non-existent parallels to the conditions of today’s workers, or to sully their memories by using the tragedy as a reason to get people to support the extortionist attempt of the public sector unions to refuse to help rescue the states in which they live from a growing unsustainable deficit. 2011, quite simply, is far away from 1911.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Hmmm… was it some “unrestrained capitalist” who said that, or a lefty?
“…the world belongs to us, to make it right as we see fit…”
…and to hell with anyone who gets in our way! Spoken like a true Leftist. Making the world a better place – over your dead bodies.
If college boy had any real connection to actual factory laborers – or anyone else who does an honest day’s work – he’d know how ridiculous he sounds.
Unlike many statists, who seem to believe that our modern bureaucratized society needs more regulations of all kinds, and that the regulators alone can address all problems, I am thankful for the private businesses that led the way to new safety initiatives.
Gary Silverman writes in the Financial Times (paywalled, hat tip to NRO’s Reihan Salam) that New York’s existing government regulations contributed mightily to the conditions that made the Triangle fire so tragic. Automatic sprinklers were available in the 1880s and private businesses outside New York’s regulatory regime, including New England’s textile mills, had put them into service well in advance of the Triangle fire.
Let’s stop repeating stories told by college know-it-all hippies and start learning history as it really happened.
My wife is a teacher and she never works from 9 to 3 and does not have 3 months off. Many times she comes home later than me (6pm) and is usually at work for 7am. I’m sure there are many teachers that do what you say but not my wife.
Whenever I drive past my local schools in the afternoon the teachers carpark is a ghost town. In fact often there is kids still waiting to be picked up and even still the teachers carpark is empty.
Perhaps your wife does something else after work?
Also it’s more than a little convenient that any time a discussion on teachers comes up, magically teachers husbands (always husbands) appear to regale us of tales o woe of how hard their teacher wives have it.
Hard life having three months a year off.
Poor babies.
It’s also more than a little convenient that you arrive past your local school just after all the lazy teachers make their mad dash for the exit. Good thing you don’t pass there earlier or you’d be stuck in terrible traffic.
My niece is a teacher. She does get to school by 7am and school ends at 2:30pm. Often she stays behind an hour or more helping children with their studies. Also she always has papers at home that she must read, correct, analyze and give guidance to help her students learn. So you just sit behind your desk and push your papers around. I bet you have a hard time raising your own kids (if you have any)properly. How about trying to teach and keep order to a room of 23 to 25, 9th graders. You poor ignorant baby.
I retired after teaching in a public school system for the final 7 years of my working life. Many dedicated teachers (I was one of then) work long days, arriving before 7:00 and usually leaving around 5:00 to spend a large part of the evening preparing for the next day–tweaking lesson plans and grading student work. If the teacher’s parking lot appeared empty, that would reflect that some actually do go home fairly soon after school–some finished for the day, some to continue working. Teaching, like parenting, is an open-ended job–and at the end of the day there were still many more things I would have liked to have done for my students.
Like parents, and like their counterparts in business, GOOD teachers put in a lot of overtime. Please don’t dismiss their efforts. However, my pay as a teacher, and my benefits, were far better than they would have been for similar dedication in the private sector. Warned that teachers needed to belong to a union in case we might need support in a lawsuit, I opted to join the state teachers’ union rather than the NEA because the NEA is simply a left-wing political entity. And I’m a conservative.
Here in Pennsylvania, the number of teachers per student continue to rise, year after year. I foresee that will continue as long as the property owner taxpayers that fund the schools allow the school boards and unions to dictate their demands. If you can’t afford property taxes, too bad, you lose your house.
“Here in Pennsylvania, the number of teachers per student continue to rise, year after year.”
Probably not true. But just imagine what class sizes would be if jarmo had his way. Thank heavens for teachers unions!
Good article.
HBO is in full Propaganda mode… Maher seems to be on 24/7.
FOX is a target of the regime and its journ-O-lists…
Yet another example of “policy by anecdote”. If someone, somewhere, somewhen, might provide an arresting tale of loss and woe that can be tangentially connected — no matter how feebly — to the present controversy, by all means let us all vote the progressive line in sympathy.
We’re doing it for the children, or the martyred, or the destitute, or the virtuous; we wouldn’t let our elderly, those who have paid, our wronged, or those who trusted us, down. We’ve got to take care of those unfortunates in far-off places, those yearning to breathe free, the oppressed, the disabled, the repentant felons…..
It just never ends.
It’s called “compassionate sensitivity”, and played right it really tugs at the heartstrings. The teachers start it very early in elementary school. By the time the kids get to college, it’s hard to resist. It’s very easy to be sympathetic to this kind of philosophy, especially if you are a teacher or professor making an excellent living off the “fat of the land” or the taxpayer by way of the unions. It’s all about guilt. It doesn’t matter if it’s unsustainable. But the unions are willing to take it to the limits – the taxpayers limits.
“But the unions are willing to take it to the limits – the taxpayers limits”
To the limits, and beyond.
Remember every state operates in the red, and gets a big fat “federal stimulis” check on future workers earnings to “balance” their budget.
The teachers and cops are bankrupting our grandchildren yet unborn
Outside of firemen and policemen, who probably do need some kind of not-quite-a-union group, I fail to see how any workers in the public sector even come close to the ancient tragedy. Seriously, the chief occupational hazards for teachers are slips, trips, and falls (which are everywhere) with possibility of carpal tunnel if they are doing lot of computer work. It’s mind boggling to even compare unionization of dangerous trades to unionization of office workers and teachers.
That’s always been my point about unions– the great, necessary battles were fought and won 50+ years ago. Public sector unions had nothing to do with those battles, either, and in fact, didn’t have to fight them because they have always been protected by civil service laws of one kind or another. Everyone has a right to negotiate their salary and benefits– it’s called “quitting” if you don’t like them.
Actually, this article was the first that I heard of that anniversary. So, the media attempt to use the event to indoctrinate me was a failure.
I saw the program last month and was immediately struck by the coincidence of its showing on PBS with the on-going (at the time) WI unions’ demonstration at the Madison capitol. To me it was a blatant attempt by PBS to generate sympathy for the unions.
That exact thought about the PBS “documentary” about the Triangle fire immediately occurred to me also. I thought it was outrageous (normal practice) for PBS to use the horrible deaths of these women in order to beat their pro-union drum.
I am sure it was just a giant coincidence that public sector unions were demonstrating in Wisconsin when this went on the air. Citizen! Make no connections with our show, please. The jury is directed to disregard the testimony. Sorry PBS, I can’t “un-see” your clumsy attempts to color the facts of that tragedy according to your political views.
Any connection, no matter how feeble, is grasped and used like a club over the heads of the unfortunate PBS viewers (victims). I say toss Big Bird out on his big fat feathered behind. De-fund PBS and NPR now before the disease can spread further.
Excellent, accurate article. Year after year in my high school, sophomores are required to read and do a project on the novel Uprising, based (somewhat loosely due to fictional characterizations) on the Triangle fire. It’s always tied to the unit that covers the rise of unions, which as you would guess is always cast in favorable light.
“Workers could not escape, because the one door through which they could have left, was locked from the outside” This seems to be a simplification of what happened. There were at least two exits on each of the 3 floors involved, plus elevators. There were fire escapes too, though terribly inadequate. Many of these escape routes were cut off by fire. On the 8th floor, the rear exit was locked until being opened by a manager. On the 9th floor, a similar exit was never unlocked.
This review in McClure’s magazine from the time is excellent:
http://tinyurl.com/4t5xhlg
The common narrative that the entire facility was locked down is false.
“Unlike many libertarians, who seem to believe that our modern corporate society needs no regulations of any kind, and that the market alone can address all problems”
This type of libertarian, anarchist really are very rare. There’s no one seriously arguing for no laws at all.
In fact current OSHA regulations are largely responsible for the dying off unions in the private sector.
“This type of libertarian, anarchist really are very rare. There’s no one seriously arguing for no laws at all.”
But it makes RR feel good about himself to believe that there are, and that he’s not just another wingnut.
“If you read newspapers or magazines or watch television, the anniversary could not be escaped.”
This is why I don’t read newspapers, magazines or even watch much television any more. I’m just tired of the Leftist mind poop which is passed off as thinking these days. BTW, is Black History Month over yet? Sorry I missed it.
I thought it was curious that PBS chose to broadcast their documentary marking the 100th anniversary of the fire some three weeks before the actual date, but right in the middle of the collective bargaining disputes taking place in Wisconsin.
I don’t know much about the Triangle Fire, but I do remember this fire: http://goo.gl/Ato3s
I doubt we’ll see any 25th anniversary “documentaries” this New Year’s Eve about San Juan’s Dupont Plaza Hotel fire (12/31/86). Three disgruntled union workers setting a hotel ablaze “to scare management” into bigger pay raises & more HEALTHCARE benefits doesn’t exactly fit the “poor us” narrative, especially when it ends up killing nearly 100 people. Besides, the left wouldn’t want to call attention to the nasty little fact that 2 of the mass murderers served less than 15 years.
As soon as I saw the virtual onslaught of commemorations of the fire, I vowed not to read and watch any of them. Because, it was obvious that those responsible were going to use the memory of the fire to further their own political agenndas. So,ironically and sadly, their abusing the memory of the fire has caused me, and many others I am sure, not to remember and to seriously reflect on its true meaning.
Given his position, Bruce Raynor’s comment is particularly disrespectful to those who died in the fire.
The amount of flab on display on the bodies of those Wisconsin “workers” is astounding and appalling. I doubt most could survive a single day’s work in the Triangle Shirt Factory.
Is it wrong to fantaize about a fire raging through the Department of Commerce, Labor, or the EPA? Or maybe an earthquake that swallows all of D.C.?
Charles Dickens was a socialist who wrote to change the world. His view is a socialist one. Contrast his twisted imagery with someone who wrote merely for entertainment like Doyl. Isn’t it strange that our view of conditions during the 1800s come directly from a socialist propagandist?
While I am anti-union in a lot of respects as concerns today’s unions, I can see where they did good work and filled a need at one time. I try to remember that at one time low wage workers were subject to horrible and unsafe conditions at work. Unions deserve credit that American workers at least work in substantially safer workplaces today.
At one time, unions also fought for decent pay for harworking people who were often in high risk jobs like mining and such. Again, they deserve some credit for helping hardworking people get paid fairly for their work.
But long ago, the unions went of the rails and became extortion rackets, sucking the life out of their employers. So we can look to the past and see where things went wrong. If unions just stuck to their original mission, I don’t think I would mind them as much.
Many forget that there were employers that on their own created good working conditions. One was Henry Ford. He payed the highest wages in the country for the work he demanded. But he did expect work for the salary.
@ Peggy – unions do deserve credit for what they’ve brought to the workplace. However, it WAS 50 years ago, AND they’ve overdrawn that good will with their continued harassment of non-union workers, support for socialists, and today’s trumpka trumpeting them to war against us – fellow Americans. They get no sympathy from me. Pension?? I’ve worked for evil corporations my entire life, i get no ‘salary’ after i retire, only what the guvt has promised and what i’ve been able to save. I’ve heard union stories my entire life of their own workers’ abuse of their unionized situations – i am NOT surprised so many of us on the ‘outside’ refuse to support them now in their criminal pursuits of those that disagree.
“Pension?? I’ve worked for evil corporations my entire life, i get no ‘salary’ after i retire, only what the guvt has promised and what i’ve been able to save.”
You should’ve joined a union. You’re in the same boat as millions of Americans. Even many of those who’ve had their pension systems replaced by 401K’s (which were not created to replace pensions) will never accumulate enough to retire.
PS – But keep railing against union pensions, if it will make you feel better (but never as good as if you actually had one).
And, btw, I imagine RR has a public pension from his years of teaching at a public community college and university (which no doubt is also why he believes K-12 teachers have three-month holidays in the summer and begin their school day at 9).
Freeman, Levin, and others, hey, they’re just writing stuff, . . . you know, . . . maybe, they’re getting paid for it—who knows why they’re doing what they’re doing, . . . okay?
Whenever I view the same “remembrance” on every channel, I invoke my “dog that did not bark” thought process. The MSM has either a conspiracy, or common ideology that results in the same world view, often the exact same photos, from an infinity of choices. They want to convey their way of thinking, guiding you down a one way alley of feelings. So stop and think independent thoughts; what is not being stated?
One is time, 1911 vs 2011; the world is both different and the same. Today, the billionaires make money by illegal immigration, and drugs. It is estimated that 1.6 million children younger than 18 – native and foreign born – have been caught in the sex trade in the United States, primarily by the crime syndicates who push dope. Dope requires distribution systems, in which each link could be a dangerous informer. There is no power looking for invisible girls. These “sweat shops” will never be unionized. The commonality, then and now, sexual favors, as required by the bosses is something unions have never stopped.
US unions have a problem; their ration d’etre is vanishing here, and has largely moved off shore. Workers who picket in other nations are normally shot by bosses who control their police forces. In this nation, police picket because their withholding stub may be reduced 8%, to fund retirement plans which “their guy” gave them but never bothered to cover the obligation within his tax revenue plans. Candidates who raise taxes lost elections; it is better to lie.
Whenever you see the same tear jerker on every channel, consider what is not being reported. Polar bears on ice bergs, baby seals being bludgeoned, pelicans in crude oil, teachers weeping, always supplant something on the news program. Normally it relates to financial discipline, who pays.
How come you and all the other MSM reporters (WSJ et al) fail to connect the dots on UNIONIZED REPORTERS and TV CREWS when considering the reportage of labor issues? Must be scared…
Most of our gripes concern PUBLIC unions.
I don’t have any problem with private unions, in most cases, except when the taxpayer has to bail out their pension plan because the employer dipped into it before he went bankrupt. Even then I can sympathize. At least the private unions realize the risk of being overly greedy. And any wage and benefits increases show up in the product or service costs to the consumer who can then make a financial decision whether or not to purchase.
But public unions are keeping us hostage. Even FDR and George Meany, former head of the AFL-CIO were against giving them collective bargaining rights, as noted in the following:
http://samschaos.blogspot.com/2011/02/fdr-afl-cio-opposed-public-unions.html
In the Daily News’ March 24th edition, a guest editorialist wrote an opinion piece on what she viewed as parallels between the willful mistakes leading up to the Triangle fire, and the current struggle of workers’ ‘basic rights’. Keira Marcus’s grandmother recently died, having been the last survivor of the fire. She would speak later on at labor rallies & especially for the rights of working women. Ms. Marcus drew upon that tragedy, & her grandmother’s struggle, to lament the current lack of ‘basic rights’ such as paid family leave.
She wrote about her former employer’s consternation about her need to take unpaid family leave to take care of her ailing mother. During that time she became pregnant, & lost her job when the economy started tanking. Her son was born with a terminal illness, which took up virtually all her time. Her husband went back to work, & not long after that their son died.
They now have a healthy 7 month-old, & are doing the work-home juggle just like the rest of us. Here is an excerpt:
‘…new challenges again remind me of how few policies are in place to help working families. Finding a job with reasonable, predictable hours where I can take time to pump milk is hard. Securing affordable, quality child care is difficult, too. And as I ride the subway home to see my son at the end of a long day, I am struck by the number of working moms and dads who run the same daily sprint as my husband and I’
My question is this: Where does it stop? At what point can employers put their collective foot down & say “We can’t take it anymore, all this is sinking us”? So ok, Mom & Dad both work, which has been the trend for, we can say it now, decades. For whatever reason: better home, neighborhood, schools, vacations, anything. The employer has also had to make adjustments, regardless of union or non-union, to not only continue to be able to profit, but even just to stay alive. Unpaid family leave without fear of termination? Yes, if the employee has been there for at least a couple of years. Mandatory paid family leave insurance? I don’t agree with that. Who pays the bulk of it? Plus, it is far too open to abuse by the chronically lazy. There are too many valid rights vs unreasonable rights to mention, especially since I’ve already taken up a massive amout of space. But comparing the life & safety of workers to the modern workplace complications is a little out of bounds.
I’m not familiar with the inner workings of unions, public or private. Can’t collective bargaining be restricted in some way to things like safety issues, etc?
The historical references are quite accurate, & show how far we’ve come in theUnited States to protect workers from abusive conditions. Unfortunately the abuses have now been coming from union power structures in the United States, & as globalism took over the economy, developing nations are still figuring out a balance of productivity standards versus worker conditions. Growing pains for them, & balance of power for us.
I’m wondering how many of the Triangle employees were illegal immigrants who had trouble finding work elsewhere; I know as young foreign-born women primarily from countries that were looked down upon at the time (Ireland and, I think, Italy) they would have been more exploitable than many classes of employee and much more desperate for work.
The real Triangle analogies I see today seem to tilt toward the illegal-immigrant-exploited-by-unscrupulous-employer stories. Another reason to prosecute those employers, NOT a reason to protect or support unions.
Sorry to intrude, but the following is too good not to share regardless of the subject at hand. It’s from the PJM blogger with the poetic name, Howard Nemerov:
“To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller’s experience with the Nazis:
“First they came for ‘Saturday Night Specials’ that were affordable for inner city families, but I didn’t own cheap guns, nor did I live in a city, so I didn’t speak out.
Then they came for scary-looking guns because they weren’t necessary for hunting, but I didn’t own semi-automatic rifles, so I didn’t speak out.
Then they came for semi-automatic pistols, but I owned a revolver, so I didn’t speak out.
When they came for me, there was nobody left to speak out.”
Great article Ron. Very clear and insightful.
It seems that (mostly in America)social victims of a sizible number will organize and gain power to overcome their abuses. Then over time when their social, economic,and political discrimination has been addressed and they have achieved their goals, the organizations, institutions and social acknowledements they have established becomes an unending economic, political entitlement with those who manage them . It is to their benefit to maintain the victim status of their constiuents long after the initial reasons for their formation and of course must feed the continued dissatisfactions.
the unions are an obvious example. In the thirties when industrial unions were being formed for legitimate reasons, the employers hired thugs to intimidate and brutalize the organizers who were mainly idealist. Now, the union workers are have largely achieved a decent living standard and union organizers are the thugs who fight to maintain the victim status of their followers bleed the taxpayers. Other examples come to mind…Civil rights advocates who perpetuate the evils of racism…Women’s liberation group that now dominate the criminal justice system, and the universities and control family marriage and divorce laws…and the Gay advocates who have achieved political and cultural goals… and Liberals who have gifted our society with muti-culturalism…and so it goes.
This is probably a stretch, but sometimes I wonder, any evidence of sabotage? Wiki says no evidence of arson.
It’s not that I don’t think conditions in the tenements and sweatshops weren’t horrible. I assume these type of industrial disasters were a regular occurrence in those days.
It’s just that–with what I think I know about the radical scene back then, the propensity to violence; with TSF coming on the heels of the LA Times bombing; in the midst of the manhunt for the perps; in what seems to be a general upswing in left-wing craziness during that specific time frame–my spidey sense tingled a little bit. I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.