TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE

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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Workers are always in need of better working conditions from their employers and especially if the conditions in the place they are working are not very good. This has evolved with time and looking at the 1911 incident of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory it is clear to state that working conditions of workers have to be considered in companies and other factories otherwise their grievances will always erupt in one way or the other.

If the issues are not addressed by the management the other ways the issues are shown off might be to the extreme and might not always be the best. A very good example is what happened in shirtwaist factory as the article states that it began with a cigar rate most probably which was intentional or due to stress or depression accused to the many working hours of the workers and no extra pay. This paper, therefore, tries to explain the issues which led to the deaths of triangle waist workers like depression, lack of unity, the state of being immigrants, employer mistreatment and working excess hours with no pay, the fear of death from fire and lastly the paper discusses the effect that had on modern-day regulations on the workplace.

Firstly due to the many bad working conditions present at the cloth-making factory, most of the workers were depressed and had stress. As one of the states, they were supposed to work from 7:30 in the morning until 6 pm. However, this did not happen as they worked until 9 pm and were given a piece of an apple for supper. In today’s time, this seems completely like real mistreatment which cannot be accommodated in any place. However back then in 1911, the major reason for accommodating this was that the workers were not Americans but rather were immigrants. Being immigrants back then meant that they never enjoyed the same rights as Americans. Even apart from the rights, the major issue was the fear of being fired since there was a lack of unity. Lack of unity meant that if a person tried to complain they were never given that chance and therefore lost their job. Due to these issues which were lack of unity and them not being Americans led to stress and when the fire came up which might have been caused by one of them they just jumped without caring because they were already too stressed.

Lack of unity in the workplace is a very big issue and that has been addressed nowadays with employers societies whereby the employers work together and are members of the organization to make sure that the rights of the employees are taken care of in the best manner possible. Lack of unity in any workplace trickles down to the fact that most employers might mistreat their employees if they are not organized just like the case of the triangle factory. The employers were mistreated because they were not organized and that was one very big problem. They worked excess hours in fear of losing their jobs because of a lack of unity.

The other reason for the deaths was the fear of fire and that was the reason why most of the workers jumped off. The reason behind it was that most of them wanted a quick death than the one they will have to feel being burned to death.

From the events of the fire and the treatment of workers at the triangle cloth line, there were many discussions on how to ensure that the workers were given priority and everything was done in the right manner honoring the rights of everyone and if extra time was added there was added payment. These discussions came to laws and in today’s laws, the rights of the workers are very much protected. Therefore employees have to operate by the laws and not just what makes the highest profit for their companies.

Bibliography

Behrens, Eric G. “Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of 1911: A Lesson in Legislative Manipulation.” Tex. L. Rev. 62 (1983): 361.

Von Drehle, David. Triangle: The fire that changed America. Grove Press, 2004.