Mary Turck: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire – Then and Now
[Mary Turck is the editor of the Connection to the Americas, a publication of the Resource Center of the Americas, and of www.americas.org. Email to: mturck@americas.org]
One hundred forty-six workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire March 25, 1911 in New York City. Mostly women, mostly young, they were locked inside the factory, trapped as it burned. Many leaped to their deaths from ninth floor windows.
Ninety-five years later, at least 54 workers were killed in a fire in KTS Textile Industries in Chittagong, Bangladesh. They, too, were locked inside the factory, where they sewed clothing for export to the United States. The dead workers at KTS included twelve-year-old, thirteen-year-old and fourteen-year-old girls. Many workers at KTS believe the death toll was much higher than the officially-reported number, pointing out that hundreds were at work at the time of the fire.
Did you read about this tragedy? Did you see it on the evening news? I didn’t. Workers being burned to death – that is not news. Workers dying in far-off places -- that is not news. It happens all the time. Three more workers burned to death in another Bangladeshi factory March 6. Last year, 64 workers died in the collapse of another Bangladeshi clothing factory.
KTS Textiles produced clothing for sale in the United States. Its workers competed against other textile workers in factories in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Workers at KTS and their counterparts in Thailand, China, and India are pitted against each other by “free” trade. Free trade allows factories and capital to move across borders, in a global race to the bottom. At the bottom, they find the lowest wages, least restrictive health and safety laws, and the greatest opportunities to profit by polluting air, water, soil and communities. That race to the bottom is the essence of “free” trade and corporate globalization.
In a world where laws are dictated by the forces of corporate globalization, money needs no passport or visa. Corporations need no passports or visas. They can move freely across national boundaries, buying and selling factories, moving jobs from country to country in search of the least-protected, lowest-paid work force obtainable. Just as corporations move freely around the globe, so do many of their wealthy owners. KTS Textile owner Wahidul Kabir reportedly lives in California. Workers, of course, cannot legally emigrate to follow the factories or the jobs.
Meanwhile, in Washington, politicians continue to push for more “free” trade, more corporate globalization. After NAFTA, after CAFTA, today they push for free trade agreements with Peru and wth Colombia and with Ecuador. ...
Today, as in 1911, Rose Schneiderman’s words ring true: “Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.”
One hundred forty-six workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire March 25, 1911 in New York City. Mostly women, mostly young, they were locked inside the factory, trapped as it burned. Many leaped to their deaths from ninth floor windows.
Ninety-five years later, at least 54 workers were killed in a fire in KTS Textile Industries in Chittagong, Bangladesh. They, too, were locked inside the factory, where they sewed clothing for export to the United States. The dead workers at KTS included twelve-year-old, thirteen-year-old and fourteen-year-old girls. Many workers at KTS believe the death toll was much higher than the officially-reported number, pointing out that hundreds were at work at the time of the fire.
Did you read about this tragedy? Did you see it on the evening news? I didn’t. Workers being burned to death – that is not news. Workers dying in far-off places -- that is not news. It happens all the time. Three more workers burned to death in another Bangladeshi factory March 6. Last year, 64 workers died in the collapse of another Bangladeshi clothing factory.
KTS Textiles produced clothing for sale in the United States. Its workers competed against other textile workers in factories in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Workers at KTS and their counterparts in Thailand, China, and India are pitted against each other by “free” trade. Free trade allows factories and capital to move across borders, in a global race to the bottom. At the bottom, they find the lowest wages, least restrictive health and safety laws, and the greatest opportunities to profit by polluting air, water, soil and communities. That race to the bottom is the essence of “free” trade and corporate globalization.
In a world where laws are dictated by the forces of corporate globalization, money needs no passport or visa. Corporations need no passports or visas. They can move freely across national boundaries, buying and selling factories, moving jobs from country to country in search of the least-protected, lowest-paid work force obtainable. Just as corporations move freely around the globe, so do many of their wealthy owners. KTS Textile owner Wahidul Kabir reportedly lives in California. Workers, of course, cannot legally emigrate to follow the factories or the jobs.
Meanwhile, in Washington, politicians continue to push for more “free” trade, more corporate globalization. After NAFTA, after CAFTA, today they push for free trade agreements with Peru and wth Colombia and with Ecuador. ...
Today, as in 1911, Rose Schneiderman’s words ring true: “Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.”