PBS Triangle FirePBS Triangle Firehttp://video.pbs.org/video/1817898383http://video.pbs.org/video/1817898383 • What are some of the factors that led to

the Triangle Fire? • What are the factors that led to reform?

The Triangle FireThe Triangle Fire• Garment industry/consumer culture• 1909: International Ladies Garment Union

(ILGWU) strike in NYC– 20,000– Lasted 14 weeks– 20% of work force– Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

• Protest dangerous and demeaning conditions• Picketers arrested• Women organize• Female dominated industries

March 25, 1911March 25, 1911

• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Asch Building, Greenwich Village (now science building for NYU)

• 146 women died. Oldest: 48. youngest: 11

• Deadliest industrial fire in U.S history

• 500 women worked on 8, 9, 10 floors• Cost of needles, electricity and thread

deducted from pay• Economic competition and workers’

wages• Lint and combustible cloth ignite• Owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris

immigrants who “made it”

• Safety precautions: buckets of water, rusted fire escape

• 250 workers on 9th floor not warned• Most 8th floor workers escaped via stairs• Doors locked to stairwells• Crowded elevators• Firemen with nets arrive• Ladders reach only to 6th floor• Jumping out of windows

ReformReform

• Better building access• Fireproofing• Alarm systems• Eating and toilet facilities• Limits on work hours• 1916: Adamson Act—federal law

mandated 8-hr work day for interstate RR workers

May 10, 1993 May 10, 1993 Bangkok, ThailandBangkok, Thailand

• Kadar Industrial toy factory (with 3,000 workers) ignites

• JC Penny, Fisher Price, Hasbro, Toys R Us• Fire kills188 workers • 469 severely injured• Bodies incinerated in intense flames• Most of the dead young women (as young as

13)• Managers locked exit doors

Apple iphone factoryApple iphone factoryMay 2010May 2010

• Shenzhen, China • 11 suicides• Chinese newspaper

Southern Weekly undercover report

• employee who lost a next-generation iPhone prototype committed suicide

Savar, BangladeshSavar, BangladeshApril 28, 2013April 28, 2013

1100 people killed1100 people killed