This week we looked into the labor laws and the concerns of women in the work field. As we may know, women were not allowed to work for many many years and it wasn’t until recent history where we can see that change and women slowly making their way into the workspace. Unfortunately, when women began working, they did not have the proper rights and laws that’ll properly and equally protect them within the work field. This week’s videos, “Triangle Returns” and “Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” alongside another reading vividly described this time with the example of the unfortunate event of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Disaster. 

Throughout history, we have been able to see the baby steps taken in society to help and protect women. In recent history, women have been granted the right to work, in any field they chose. However, they have not always and still aren’t protected within their workspace. From monetary inequality to safety precautions, women have been facing many difficulties while trying to make a simple living in a work area they enjoy or simply need. In the youtube video “Triangle Shirtwaist Factory” We hear about the unfortunate event of March 24th, 1911 where a factory in NYC caught on fire. This factory employed about 500 women who worked extremely long hours for less than minimum wage. In this incident, the women were trapped in the building for 18 minutes total where they couldn’t leave because the energy exits were locked by management to prevent items from being stolen or removed from factory premises. This factory also lacked a sprinkler system which also led to the fire spreading in the building, causing the death of 146 women total. It took this very horrifying incident alongside protests due to the incident for rights and laws to be passed to protect women in the workplace. More than 100,000 workers protested demanding safer environments in the workspace. Because of this, laws and rules were passed that demanded automatic sprinklers indoors, as well as fire exits could not be locked. 30 years later, minimum wage laws were passed, time and a half(overtime hours) law was passed and the working middle class was created. Watching this was very saddening knowing it took a very unfortunate event for women to receive basic protection within the work field. The most upsetting fact of this event was hearing about the owners of the factory trial. The owners went to trial for this incident that was ruled as murder as it could have been prevented, and they were found not guilty. As management, it is your responsibility to make sure your environment is safe for the workers, no matter the incident. There should be no reason why these owners cared more about a few products being stolen, that they had to block emergency exits, than the lives of their workers. While this event may seem so long ago, a few months after its 100th anniversary, another fire broke out, this time across the world in Bangladesh. This event happened exactly the same as the Triangle shirtwaist. Factory-filled with employees, a fire broke out, employees couldn’t leave due to emergency exits being closed off and no automatic sprinklers to put out a fire. After 100 years of the world becoming more advanced, having new technologies and over 50 years of laws to protect employees from events like these put into place, it was super unfortunate and saddening knowing that while we think we take 1 step forward we actually take 3 steps back. 100 years is more than enough time to realize working conditions and there should be no excuse why the same exact event happened twice within such a long timespan from each other. 

Lastly, a snapshot that caught my eye this week was a post made by classmate Heatherlee. They posted a side-by-side image comparison of working conditions in factories for women. The first image is a black and white image of factory workers, while the second image is a colored image, as the people in the image appear to be wearing face coverings due to the recent Pandemic. In both images, women are lined up, hand sewing and hand manufacturing goods. I believe that we should be taking steps forward in society when it comes to factories. These people should not be working in sweatshops where they work extremely long hours for little to almost no pay at all. Technology has advanced a ton and employers from these huge mega-millionaire companies should be able to pay above minimum wage if they want to keep handmade products. If they can’t “afford” this pay, they should be using machinery in factories to protect these workers from these horrible working conditions.