The triangle shirtwaist factory fire was among the first incident that we know of well to have brought about the change of labor laws, the 1938 fair labor standards act, the equal rights amendment, and the Sullivan-hoey fire prevention law. However, as we saw in the second video, 2010 humming factory fire in Bangladesh, and view some companies now like shine, dolls kill, and forever 21, to name a few, there is still much that should be changed and improved on. in both fires we’ve seen that all conditions were the same, about 100 years after the shirtwaist factory, there was again a lack of attention given about workers rights and safety. exits were locked, the system was malfunctioning or ever in working condition, family conditions and working again decided to leave what they could for their families to mourn. The people of Bangladesh had been earning less than what the workers of the triangle shirtwaist factory had been making with the addition of inflation. Their protest and demands were met with violence from officials. We see yeat again, these corporations not be held accountable for their lack of interest in human life, for the way their actions have affected these people, no compensation they gave to the families of these victims would sufist. In both cases, these fires should have been preventable. As Charles Kernaghan said, these large corporations rather have copyright laws issued as their conditions. Compared to now, we have these dast fashion industries that steal designs from small businesses that exploit developing countries and immigrants. They can make this profit because there is demand. We can say to hold the consumer accountable but then again, to do so, we would have to go into our economy and make it so that the minimum wage is higher and create more occupations. We are now cautioned about our decision; the emplaced system now does not favor anyone in the end. We have the second-largest polluter of water with fast fashion production, posing a risk to workers and communities. We still need to find ways to hold people in positions of power accountable.

I haven’t read or seen anything about the fire that occurred at the Triangggle Shirtwaist factory in a long time. I feel not so disappointed because we have made progress in the world in terms of human rights, employee rights and discrimination. However, even business owners continue to abuse their employees, they have better pay but not the one they deserve for the hours and quality of the employees at work. For example, Amazon is one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. The market has millions of workers who work long hours, they have improved the ground a little but many of them do not have discounts to buy from the same company compared to other organizations whose employees have discounts, life insurance and a better salary.
I think that the workers, when they are employees, must obey the orders because it is the only way for them to be able to bring food to their table. However, I think that they should create organizations to give them more power and help the employees defend their rights because the workers are the head of A company cannot succeed without them

IMANE CHAABA

REFLECTION 7

We honestly didn’t need a tragedy and loss like Triangle Shirtwaist to happen so we can make changes in-laws. We didn’t need to lose hundreds of women from Bangladesh to New York to finally create laws that can protect people and women in the workplace. The fact that these 500 immigrant women used to work more than 12 hours a day is brutal. These billions of dollars companies owners were only worrying about if their employees would steal something from the building and actually close all doors. Women’s rights were at the lowest level. People got killed for speaking about their rights. It is true that both incidents made a huge change, especially in America, but if there had been controlled and necessary care, nothing would happen. I still can’t believe that women throw themselves just so their families can have their bodies, and these women did not know how to speak English. Women must get the most attention because they are the center of everything. There are still countries where women are still fighting for equality. The ERA “Equal Rights Amendment was strongly built to protect women. Women deserve the right to vote, the right to have their own public space, and have the same exact rights as men have. The ERA can lead to a better future where there is no such thing as superiority.

Reading reflection 7

I love learning and experiencing new things. I always grew up to be home and very family-oriented and I didn’t meet the real world till I got older. The number of new things I’ve learned, seen, and came across are truly an eye-opener. Whenever I learn something interesting I immediately share it with my friends and family. I love feeding positive energy and thoughts to my loved ones. even if I don’t know the individual I would be happier to educate them on something they don’t know. speaking to people who also know what I just learned is something I enjoy doing. Having deep conversations is something I try to do a lot. the simple fact that someone can educate me, even more, is am amazing. This lesson has taught been an eye-opener so of course, I explained it to one of my loved ones who are my best friend. watching the garment factory left both of us surprised. We are strong believers in the bible and everything that has had happened back then such as all the tragedies will repeat as generations keep going. It’s also crazy that what happened to these Bengali people was allowed to happen again to others. however in this case it seemed even more scarily coincidental because it was almost. In addition, something that caught my eye was the amount of money the workers in Bangladesh were getting paid hourly in 2010. they were only getting $0.28 cents. Which is a drastic difference from the U.S.

Whenever I learn interesting things in school, my childlike instincts kick in to go and tell my mother whatever new thing I’ve just been taught. After explaining to her what the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was, she told me that I’d already learned about the tragedy in high school, and that I had told her about it. It was beyond odd to realize I had forgotten it, because watching the video I was so shocked. Even so, learning about the other garment factory that had caught on fire in Bangladesh and almost suffered the exact story that took place in 1911 was beyond bizarre. I’ve always known the phrase about history repeating itself, however in this case it seemed even more scarily coincidental because it was almost exactly one hundred years later. How did we as a society even allow this disaster to repeat itself if after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire there were laws put in place to help advocate for work safety and prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future? Another concept that I could barely grasp was the wages the workers in Bangladesh were getting paid in 2010 was a measly $0.28 cents an hour, which is 1/10th of the U.S. wage almost one hundred years ago. When they tried to demand better wages for the terrible conditions they were hosed down in the street like animals. It’s just so unbelievable that this happened, again and the outcome didn’t even have benefits this time.

I remember learning about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in middle school, but hearing about it now as an adult, I am able to understand the importance and impact of that event better. As a kid it was presented as something that was “bad but we fixed it”, where it is much bigger than that. 146 people should not have had to die for this country to finally reform labor laws (AND fire safety laws) . What is heartbreaking to me is that people jumped out of the buildings not just to avoid death by fire, but so there would be an actual body left behind for the family to mourn.
The man in the video says that, “Management would lock the exit doors during a fire so garments can’t be stolen”, which I think is a testament to how capitalism values money/profit immensely over workers’ lives. I think this continues to remain today.

The article “Virginia Just Became the 38th State to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Here’s What to Know About the History of the ERA” ends with noting that most people don’t even know the ERA hasn’t been ratified, even it’s been floating around since 1923. And it’s true! I didn’t know about any of this. It’s baffling to me that the ERA/ Equal rights remains a controversial opinion. The ERA initially failed because of anti-feminists actions. Phyliss Schlafly, founder of an anti-ERA group is quoted saying: “What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.”  Somehow, these kinds of social/political/labor rights issues always come back to the defense of “You can’t have rights because it steals from mine.”

I insist that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory incidence is a tragedy that most definitely could have been prevented. Was the need to have locked young women in the factory without the logical thinking of the having to take breaks from the long hours of working. No decent thought towards the workers. Was it because they were women, or was it for the intention that they were young or immigrants, or was it just all of it combined? Did the supervisors enjoy seeing people survive? This was an extremely bad situation although it had a good outcome. The Amendments of those rights of those workplaces. The lives that were lost through this circumstance forced people to fight for what was right. They fought for amenities we enjoy today. Though the situation has been fixed in the United States, there seems to be so many countries that have company owners taking advantage of their workers in very which way. Like the similar fire situation in Bangladesh. If there had been proper care and important measures taken in the other countries as well, the situation could have been prevented. The sad reality is that, even in today’s century, the big and luxurious brands we were today are made from countries like Bangladesh, specifically in factories were people work for endless hours in severely bad conditions, even worse than that of the shirtwaist factory. They do this severe manual work and are paid so poorly, that it affects their living conditions. They do not seem to have a break; they move from poverty to poverty. They work till their backs crack yet they do not enjoy the benefit of their labor one bit.

In Summation, there is gender imbalance in the amount of housework done by men and women. Even when they work outside the home, women do far more housework than men. Although some studies demonstrate that men now do more housework than they used to, recent data suggests that men are just exaggerating the quantity of housework they now do by responding to questions about their housework in socially desirable ways. 

Although women have made significant progress in politics in the United States, they still trail men in terms of the number of legislative seats they hold. This percentage is larger in the US than in many other countries, but lower than in many European and other countries. After watching the films and reading the articles on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, my dissatisfaction with laws all across the world has grown. Many factors contribute to worker mistreatment around the world, and much of it is due to corporate avarice. Companies with billion-dollar profits are unwilling to give their employees a decent salary or offer safe working conditions. Misogyny, classism, and racism, in my opinion, all play a role in the treatment of these workers.

Watching these videos made me see how humans have no regard for human life. I say this because how could you know there’s a fire you have people in the building and just lock the doors to prevent them from accessing any way to escape. In my opinion, they rather see people jump to their death than help them escape. Fortunately, in the United States, there are laws that are put in place to alert workers when there’s a fire for instance the fire sprinklers but in most countries, I don’t have laws that protect workers from disasters like the one in Bangladesh. I believe people have to fight for what they believe in, for instance, human rights every person should have access to regardless of whether you are in a different country. Also, workers should have access to proper safe workplaces. Workers should not be fear to go to work or even have to choose between work or life. It just blows my mind how these workers had to jump in order for the family to have their bodies so they can get a proper burial and memorial service. NO family should have to ever be afraid or worried that their loved ones will never return home because of the work conditions they have to work at because they’re simply trying to survive or no worker should ever have to fear not ever seeing a family again because they’re simply trying to survive and support their families.

I remember hearing about The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire when I was in middle school which made me sad. I found this tragedy sad simply because it was something that could have been prevented from the start. The first thing that I didn’t like was that 500 people (who were mainly young immigrant women) worked around 11-12 hours per day and the pay they received per hour wasn’t the best. Another thing that angered me was that the exit door could only open inward but even so, management ended up always locking it so they couldn’t leave through that exit as well. If management wouldn’t have locked that door perhaps fewer lives would’ve been lost. If management has also done a monthly check on the water hose, perhaps that fire could have also have been turned off. There are so many what-ifs and maybes that can be applied here but sadly, they weren’t thought of or considered. The working conditions these women were put through were very poor. And it’s sad to say, but if it wasn’t for this incident, there wouldn’t have been a change done. It was due to this incident that many factories started installing sprinklers in case of fire. Yet although this incident took place, working conditions now around the world are still not the best.