Triangle Fire Commemoration Draws Parallels With Today

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

A half-day-long Capitol Hill commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in Manhattan - a fire that killed 146 young immigrant workers, almost all of them women - drew uncomfortable parallels with conditions facing workers today. Speakers, including Sally Greenberg of the National Consumers League (NCL), Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and workers who suffered exploitation or have seen family members die, used the March 21 meeting to urge mass action to restore workers' rights to collectively bargain and to toughen and enforce job safety and health laws. The session honored the centennial of the fire on the afternoon of March 25, 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., a clothing maker - one of hundreds in lower Manhattan - that employed young mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women. Click here for the complete report; other local commemorations this week include "Triangle: Remembering The Fire" labor film & discussion (Friday, March 25, noon at the Center for American Progress); "Triangle Fire" labor film screening (Friday, March 25, noon at the AFL-CIO); Poetry Reading Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Centennial (Friday, March 25, noon at the Library of Congress). Also, click here to view TRIANGLE'S ECHOES: The Unfinished Struggle for Worker Protection, Safety and Health, a brief (13m) but moving mini-documentary produced by the National Consumers League. - By Mark Gruenberg, PAI