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Lessons Remain to Be Learned 100 Years after the Triangle Fire

The article below is an edited reprint of a story about worker safety which I wrote last year. I’m posting it in honor of May Day. 

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, 146 garment industry workers – mostly young Jewish and Italian women – died during the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The safety flaws that led to this tragedy – locked stairwells and exits, unsafe fire escapes, and lack of communication systems between floors  – seem nearly unthinkable today.  Yet the employer resistance to health and safety improvements that cost these women their lives 100 years ago sounds disturbingly similar to arguments that we hear today from industry trade groups opposing safer chemicals policies.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

After the fire, New York Governor John Alden Dix created a commission to investigate health and safety in New York factories.  The commission visited over 3000 factories in 20 industries. As a result, the state created its first workplace safety requirements, a set of 25 different laws passed over the objections of business owners and industry representatives. 100 years later, although some companies are adopting responsible practices, industry groups still use very similar objections to obstruct modern health and safety legislation.

Here are quotes from 100 years ago followed by similar statements that industry groups make today.

1911: Obstructing Factory Safety

1: Industry says: The chemicals are safe

Before the Triangle Fire, there were no chemical safety rules for New York factories. After the fire, companies were required to provide hot water so employees could wash after handling chemicals. (Today, we know that this is highly inadequate, but it was a major step forward then.) One manufacturer downplayed the health and safety threat by saying the chemicals his workers used (such as lead) were not dangerous to workers unless they were careless.

“The only tendency toward illness comes to men who are intemperate in their habits.  In every case of poisoning I have heard of, the man was an exceedingly hard drinker….Where the men are temperate in their habits I never found a case…”
– Arthur S. Summers, a dry colors manufacturer

2: Industry says:  Products will not be available

In the days before the fire, employees in cellar bakeries faced unsafe working conditions due to poor ventilation. Despite the cries of bakery owners and the real estate industry that the cost of bread would skyrocket and bakeries would vanish, the legislature prohibited opening new cellar bakeries.

“If you eliminate further bakeshops in the cellar… the poor man is going to suffer, and we are crying now for the high cost of living. If you will wipe out the cellar bakeries, the poor man will get a smaller loaf of bread.”
– Dr. Abraham Korn, president of the United Real Estate Owners’ Association

3:  Industry says: Employers will leave the state

When New York considered legislation after the fire, there was a massive outcry. Business organizations made threats that factories would flee the state if the new workplace safety rules became law.

“The Real Estate Board of New York is informed that thousands of factories are migrating to New Jersey and Connecticut in order to be freed from the oppressive laws of New York State.”
– Op-ed by George W. Olvany, special counsel to the Real Estate Board, “The Fire Hazard in Big Buildings,” New York Times, May 3, 1914.

However, these predictions appeared to be unfounded.

“Notwithstanding all the talk of a probable exodus of manufacturing interests the commission has not found a single case of a manufacturer intending to leave the State because of the enforcement of the factory laws.”
– From “Seeks To Simplify Building Inspection,” New York Times, July 27, 1914.

2010: Stalling Chemical Safety Measures

100 years later, industry groups often raise similar warnings and brush aside the need to introduce safer alternatives to toxic chemicals. The following quotes are taken from public testimony by industry representatives fighting the passage of the Safer Alternatives Bill in Massachusetts and the regulation of BPA by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

1: Industry says: The chemicals are safe

Based on industry studies funded by the chemical industry, the FDA still classifies BPA as safe, although it is currently reevaluating that assessment. However, medical evidence of BPA’s toxicity, in particular at low levels, continues to accumulate in independently funded studies. The chemical industry continues to tout the safety of BPA.

“BPA is not a risk to human health, including the health of infants and children, at the very low levels that are present in consumer products.”
– American Chemistry Council statement on Massachusetts BPA regulation

2: Industry says:  Products will not be available

As Massachusetts regulators considered a ban on infant formula bottles containing BPA, industry representatives claimed that baby bottles would not be available despite the already widespread use of BPA-free bottles.

“This action is both unnecessary and not in the interest of Massachusetts infants and caregivers, as it would reduce the availability of infant formula products currently available in the Commonwealth.”
– International Formula Council statement on Massachusetts BPA regulation

3: Industry says:  Employers will leave the state

Despite solid union support for the Safer Alternatives Bill, which will create a program in Massachusetts to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives whenever feasible, industry groups regularly promote the fear that jobs may leave the state if the bill passes.

“We urge you to consider the negative impact of this bill on jobs and investments in your district…”
– Associated Industries of Massachusetts statement on the Safer Alternatives Bill from testimony provided to the Joint Committee on Natural Resources, Environment and Agriculture in 2009

Jobs vs. Safety: We Don’t Have to Choose

When businesses, unions and legislators support safety for customers and workers, they can prevent disasters like the Triangle Fire. The following quote from a worker at the garment factory shows the value of forethought and responsibility.

“If the union had won we would have been safe. Two of our demands were for adequate fire escapes and for open doors from the factories to the streets. But the bosses defeated us and we didn’t get the open doors or better fire escapes. So our friends are dead.”
– Rose Sabran, Triangle Waist Company employee

Today, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO – and many other organizations – support the Safer Alternatives Bill.

“We owe those who work in our state the safest and healthiest workplaces we can possibly provide. Where safer alternatives exist, there is no excuse for putting the health and welfare of workers at risk by making them work with completely avoidable toxic chemicals…. The many workers who will no longer be at risk of chronic disease or workplace injury and [their] families… will be profoundly grateful for your role in passing this legislation.”
– AFL-CIO statement on the Safer Alternatives Bill

The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and the changes that came about afterwards gives us hope that when we stand up for the human right to a healthy and safe workplace and community, we can win the protections that we deserve.  It also reminds us of the terrible tragedies that happen when we let age-old myths about regulation being damaging cloud our thinking and prevent us from taking basic steps to protect our health.

Sources:

Tolle Graham of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health and Elizabeth Saunders of The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow also contributed to this article.