feature stories
Honoring the dead, fighting for the living
Apr 26, 2007 1:09 PM
Triangle Waist fire tragedy relived at ceremony
District 1 school children honor the memory of 146 immigrant workers who died in the 1911 Triangle Factory fire after employers locked the doors as a punitive measure to cut down on breaks.
Some 1,000 supporters of labor rights and job safety crowded a Greenwich Village intersection March 26 to commemorate the 96th anniversary of what until 9/11 was the single-most-horrific workplace disaster in the city’s history.
Near closing time on March 25, 1911, a fire raged through the top two floors of the Asch factory building — now an NYU property — which then housed the Triangle Waist Company. One hundred forty-six of the 500 employees perished before the fire was contained.
The victims, mostly young women and mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, died in the fire or from jumping from windows after managers locked the doors as a punitive measure. The bosses were cracking down on what they considered worker “idleness” from too-frequent breaks.
A student lays one of 146 flowers to remember the dead.
While the Triangle manufacturers were never convicted of a crime — a botched prosecution and a partisan judge saw to that — the tragedy forced significant reforms in fire protection and workplace safety. It also boosted the organizing efforts of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, now UNITE-HERE, which went on to successfully organize the then-sprawling women’s garment industry in lower Manhattan.
Among those attending the commemoration were students from local schools PS 20, PS 134 and PS 137, and UFT President Randi Weingarten thanked their teachers “for educating your students about our labor history, about how our parents, grandparents and great grandparents suffered, and what they did to win justice and safety at the workplace.”
The former Asch Building, site of the 1911 blaze, now NYU offices.
Weingarten also reminded listeners that “while working conditions have improved significantly since then, it is not because corporations had a change of heart after the Triangle fire. It’s because workers and their unions fought tooth and nail for every single improvement in wages and working conditions, and elected officials listened and acted.”
Other speakers included Cardinal Edward Egan, UNITE-HERE President Bruce Raynor, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Comptroller Bill Thompson Jr., Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott and Hotel Trades Council President Peter Ward.
After the speech-making, a city fire fighter tolled a bell 146 times as students one by one read the names of the martyrs, then laid flowers to honor the dead and protect the living.
UFT President Randi Weingarten reminds listeners that it was workers and their unions — not the good will of employers — who won workplace safety.
