Workers worldwide combat sweatshops

Sophie Stoller was ill and did not go to work on March 25, 1911.

A momentous event took place that day—the worst industrial fire in New York history, in which 146 of her co-workers died. Sophie Stoller worked for the Triangle Shirtwaist Co.

Ninety-five years ago, the cry of “Fire!” rang out just minutes before the 5 p.m. closing time at the garment factory. On the top three floors of the Asch Building, 500 young people were working overtime that Saturday to add to the $6 a week they earned sewing women’s shirts.

Triangle fire spurred on unionization of garment industry.

Terrified workers ran for the elevators and stairs; many were trapped by locked exits or doors that opened inward. Flammable materials were everywhere. Hundreds were saved by heroic elevator operators who transported them downstairs.

But when Fire Department hoses and ladders didn’t reach high enough, many workers fell, trying to leap to the ladders. Fire escapes collapsed under the weight of those waiting to be rescued. Many, desperately fleeing the flames and suffocation, jumped 100 feet and perished.

In minutes, 146 workers had died. Bodies were found trapped behind doors, on stairways and piled on the ground. Of the deceased, 123 were women and girls as young as 11 years old. Others were severely injured.

Sophie Stoller was my grandmother. I exist because she didn’t go to work that day.

Those who perished were immigrants, as she was. Many were her friends. The company’s owners and officers were all rescued.

This horrific fire was preventable. The factory doors were kept locked to tie workers ceaselessly to their sewing machines—a common garment industry practice. There were no sprinklers, usable emergency exits or fire escapes.

Triangle Shirtwaist was a typical profitable garment sweatshop. The grueling workweek was 84 to 100 hours. Like other sweatshop owners, the employers hired immigrants, mostly women and children, violating child labor laws. They were cheap labor and could be easily fired. The workers had to pay for their sewing supplies.

Sweatshop workers had begun in August of 1909 to stage walkouts and strikes to protest their exploitation and the lack of safety measures.

In the historic “Uprising of the 20,000,” garment workers had gone on strike from November 1909 to February 1910. Many were from the Triangle factory, notorious for its brutal conditions.

But Triangle’s owners were intransigent. They rebuffed demands for fire escapes and safe emergency exits. The devastating fire and loss of life were the price the workers paid for their bosses’ greed.

And the owners escaped culpability. Though the surviving Triangle workers and strong public pressure demanded the indictment of the company’s owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, for responsibility in the workers’ deaths, they were not convicted of these crimes.

A jury of rich men

The all-male, wealthy jurors stood by their fellow manufacturers. Despite the testimony of over 100 witnesses, the jury acquitted the owners of manslaughter charges after less than two hours of deliberation.

When 23 families who lost loved ones sued the Triangle company, they received only $75 each; that was deemed the value of a lost worker’s life. The employers, however, profited well from the disaster. They got $60,000 in insurance benefits.

The Triangle fire exposed the horrors of capitalism and industrial greed for the world to see. It showed the callous attitude of the business owners toward their employees: they were the means to produce goods and create profits; their lives were insignificant.

And it proved how needed labor unions were to win any safety measures in the workplaces.

Unionization led to regulations

This event spurred on unionization of the garment industry, the struggle to win better working conditions and even the socialist movement. Workers joined unions in droves, especially the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which fought for legal protections for workers. It led a march of 100,000 to demand safety legislation.

Rose Schneiderman of the ILGWU and Women’s Trade Union League said at a New York City memorial for the workers on April 2, 1911: “Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. ... it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.”

Workers’ struggles and mass pressure did bring about New York State fire codes and protections, followed by city and federal regulations.

But now, nearly a century later, is capitalism any kinder? The opposite is true. Capitalist globalization has fueled worldwide the growth of brutal garment sweatshops, from Honduras to the Philippines. Many U.S.-based corporations make mega-profits by super-exploiting workers, mostly women and children, paying little, denying benefits, and flouting safety and health protections.

In the global economy, profits constantly trump workers’ safety.

U.S. companies, including Wal-Mart and The Gap, contract most of Bangladesh’s garment manufacturing. Wal-Mart profits by paying workers there all of 9 cents an hour to make clothing for its stores. (USA Today, Aug. 14, 2001)

Much clothing is produced in death-traps without fire protection. In 2000, locked exits and other hazards caused 52 workers, including 10 children, to die in a fire near Dhaka at the Chowdhury Knitwear and Garment factory. Nearly 80 died in a similar fire this February at Chittagong’s KTS garment factory.

Sweatshops return here

Even within the U.S.—the richest country in the world—profit-hungry business owners, with government collusion, are trying to turn back decades of safety and health standards, including fire protection.

Half of clothing factories here are sweatshops, says the U.S. Department of Labor, which reports dangerous conditions at nearly all Los Angeles clothing factories. This impacts the youth, women, people of color and immigrants who toil inside them.

Safety measures are defied in other industries, too. A poultry factory fire in Hamlet, N.C., in 1991 killed 25 workers; as at Triangle, the exits had been locked or blocked.

For 15 years in the 1980s to 1990s, many Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores locked in workers at night without keys. They were threatened with termination if they used fire exits; sometimes those doors were chained shut. Even with medical emergencies, workers could not leave the facilities. (New York Times, Jan. 18, 2004)

Sophie Stoller was a fierce advocate for the working class. She would have supported the rights of all workers today to labor in safe workplaces, with decent pay and benefits, and the undisputed right to unionize. She staunchly believed a better world was possible, one without exploitation and oppression, based on equality and respect for all working people.