The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was a horrific event which occurred due to gross negligence on the part of the owners. One way that workers are exploited is by not paying them a living wage which ensures they must work 12 or more hour days. No one should be forced to work 12 or more hours per day. The most disturbing part of this week’s videos and reading are thinking about the fact that this goes on today. It is truly multinational corporations who run the world. Modern technology, conveniences, and luxuries that we all use every day were created though exploitative labor practices by corporations in developing countries. In the US, workers continue to be exploited in places like the Tyson meat packing factories and Amazon Warehouses.
In the Youtube video, “Triangle Returns”, Charles Kernaghan discusses the horror of the 2010 Ha-Meem factory fire in Bangladesh occurring almost 100 years after the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Kernaghan states that in this economy, workers work 7 days per week, with one day off per month and live in abject conditions. When workers protested, demanding just 35 cents an hour as opposed to the 28 cents per hour wage they were being paid, they were denied this by Walmart and other mega corporations. They were also beaten by local police.
Heatherlee’s snapshot perfectly depicts how far we still have to come in our efforts to do away with sweatshops. Their snapshot is a photo of women working in sweatshops around 100 years ago juxtaposed with a photo of women sweatshop laborers today. Why does it take death of workers suffering in these deplorable conditions for sweatshop exploitation to make the news? Products that we use every day were created through exploitation. Factories in China where the Apple iPhone is made have suicide nets surrounding their buildings. For them it’s more sensible to install suicide nets to keep people from killing themselves then it is to provide workers with livable wages and working conditions.
Another event that we looked at this week which could be seen as a sign of progress or a disappointment depending on how you look at it was Virginia becoming the 38th state to ratify the century old Equal Rights Amendment. This Amendment was originally written in 1923. In 1972, Phyllis Schlafly, a real-life version of Serena Joy from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, was the bill’s biggest opponent. Schlafly wanted to preserve the rights of women as “wives and mothers”.
It’s a travesty that the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be passed. The fact that an entire political party prides itself on making sure that the constitution never explicitly states that people can’t be discriminated against on the basis of sex is a crime. If the Equal Rights Amendment were ratified today, we wouldn’t have to constantly fight for the right for safe access to abortion. Laws that are being passed in Texas today are attempts at erasing decades worth of progress in the fight for women’s rights.
