By U.S. Senator Al Franken

WASHINGTON - On Friday, March 25, 2011 we mark the 100th anniversary of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, an event that became a rallying cry for the U.S. labor movement and sparked many of the labor reforms and hard-won union rights that created our middle class and generations of widespread prosperity.

In 1911, the Triangle sewing factory occupied the top three floors of the 10-story Asch building in Manhattan. It employed more than 500 people for long hours and low pay in cramped, sweatshop conditions, producing the “shirtwaist” blouses popular in that era. On March 25 of that year, a fire quickly swept through the ill-prepared factory, killing 146 mostly female workers, some as young as 14. Terrified workers couldn’t get to escape routes because the factory’s owners kept the doors to the stairwell exits locked. The rickety fire escape collapsed, causing many to fall to their deaths. To escape the inferno, many were forced to jump to their deaths from windows eight or nine stories up. Much of this was witnessed by ordinary citizens on the ground, and by helpless firefighters whose ladders weren’t long enough to reach the workers.

The tragedy outraged the public, and energized a labor movement that went on to successfully win new laws that over several decades improved the safety and rights of workers not only in New York, but also across the country. Today, we all benefit from those laws and the ability of working men and women to have a voice in the workplace and collectively negotiate their working conditions. The national response to this tragic fire helped spur minimum wage laws, the 40-hour workweek, family and medical leave and many other reforms that union rights to collective bargaining have won for working families.

In the past several weeks, we have seen a new assault on working people’s collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Ohio and even in Minnesota. What Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the State Legislature have done under the guise of budget balancing, has been to take away teachers’ ability to bargain for smaller class sizes, firefighters’ to bargain for better safety, and nurses’ to bargain for better care for their patients.

In the weeks since the assault on workers’ rights in Wisconsin began, not just labor advocates, but the general public has risen up to oppose turning back the clock on those rights.

Thousands of people from Minnesota and across the country have seen the threat posed in Wisconsin and have stood up to show solidarity with working people in that state and across the country. As a member of four unions, I proudly join them and will do everything in my power to ensure working people maintain the right to collectively bargain for fair working conditions.

We’ve come a long way for working men and women in the century since the terrible Triangle Shirtwaist fire. We have to continue to stand together against the current assault on workers’ rights to ensure those gains for working families in Minnesota and across the country aren’t undone.

Bystanders watch in horror as dozens of young
Jewish and Italian immigrant women jump
to their deaths to escape the flames.