International Ladies Garment Workers Union,The Triangle Shirtwaist CompanyFire(1911)And The Creation Of The NYS Factory Investigating Commision

The ILGWU was founded in 1900 and had both male and female workers.The men were skilled fabric cutters/tailors and the women shirtwaist(blouse)makers were members of Local 25(NYC).The factories that employed the workers varied greatly in size from large enterprises to small businesses.The term"sweatshops" do not refer to the workplace temperature but the management practice of sweating labor,assigning specific jobs on lots of garments to ever-smaller shops or units within the same factory. Manufacturing costs were "sweated" downward at each lower level and the workers themselves negotiated the renegotiated wages and production deadlines. Many workers were vulnerable in regard to wages and fluctuations in demand,with little job security.(Dray)

Conditions in the large factories were crowded,poorly heated and ventilated, and bathroom breaks were discouraged or forbidden.Verbal and physical abuse was not uncommon.Workers also complained of routine condescension,sexual touching,and harassment. There was no grievance system and complaining got one fired or blacklisted from the trade entirely.It was a northern form of industrial slavery.About 50% were Russian Jews and another 35% Italian.

In the warm summer of  1909, workers finally rebelled at the Rosen Brothers Company in NYC.The ILGWU led a five week stoppage that forced Rosen Brothers to recognize the union,establish a shop floor grievance committee,and grant a 20% rate increase. The ILGWU had a critical ally in the Women's Trade Union League(WTUL), a group of middle and upper class reformers that was founded in 1903. Their mission was to assist the organizing activities of female workers,especially by fund-raising,and to link labor activism to broader women's issues such as suffrage,public education and temperance. The alliance between the groups brought immigrant garment workers,uptown Progressives,and college students from Bernard and Vassar together to stand on picket lines outside of garment factories.(Dray)

Picketing was made difficult by the neighborhood pugilists and street walkers,hired by the companies,to "protect" replacement workers.Strikers were often shoved,kicked and intimidated.Gangs of men used their fists against young female strikers and hurled many to the ground to be beaten.The WTUL tactic of placing college students and women of means on the picket line was intended to grant the strikers some protection.

On Nov.22,1910, members of the ILGWU and WTUL gathered at Cooper Union(NYC) to consider a broader garment industry strike.The next morning,fifteen thousand workers walked off their jobs in a crippling industry-wide strike.The street violence intensified as female pickets and scabs tangled throughout the garment district of the city.The two groups marched as one to City Hall to meet Mayor George B.McCellan Jr.,son of the Civil War general,to protest the police department's flagrant discrimination in favor of the employers and halt the insults,intimidation's and abuses to lawful picketers. The National Civic Federation(NCF) offered to broker a resolution to end the strike.It recommended a six member arbitration board of two from each side as well as two members from the public.Eventually,the owners agreed to a fifty-two hour workweek,some paid holidays,shop committees to help set rates and wages,and an end to employee charges for supplies.The ILGWU turned down the deal because union recognition was not offered.By late January,with resources drying up,women began returning to work as individual shops cobbled together agreements.Not all objectives were obtained by ILGWU, but some of the most offensive employer  practices had been curtailed and working stature improved overall.(Dray)

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was adamant in its resistance to industrial democracy.Staving off the ILGWU through both the 1909 and the 1910 strikes,it managed to keep its order books filled and its sewing benches in action with many recently arrived immigrants.On March 25,1911, a fire broke out in the corner of an eighth-floor workroom.Between six and seven hundred employees were present at the factory at he time.Panic ensued as the workers tried to flee amid upended sewing machines and tangled electrical wires. The door to the stairway had been locked from the outside,so most attempted to escape by means of one functioning elevator. The Triangle's practice of locking the exit doors to the stairway from the outside was to deter workers from leaving early,taking unapproved breaks or stealing fabric. One hundred and forty-six people,mostly young women(19yr. average),had perished in the fire.

NYS had been unable to prove criminal neglect on the part of the owners of the Triangle factory,but it was clear the real culprit had been the absence of enforceable factory safety measures. Al Smith and Robert Wagner pushed through legislation creating the NYS Factory Commission(FIC) only three months after the triangle fire.Frances Perkins,who ran the NY office of the National Consumers League,was also instrumental with the legislation to reform fire safety procedures in the workplace.The FIC was also active in investigating the dangerous trades that used lead,arsenic,phosphorous,benzene,coal tar,turpentine and mercury. It won legislation that set minimum standards for health,safety and cleanliness of baking facilities,wash up sinks,clean bathrooms and safe drinking water.Later, the FIC turned to issues of child labor, the minimum wage and work performed in the home.(Dray)

More from Dray in the future..."There Is Power In A Union"..and the unions are coming back because America needs them to bring democracy back to the majority.