Before the Fire
Like many New York workers in the early 1900s, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory employees were were paid based on the factory owners’ preferences. Wages depended on how much the they liked the workers and whether or not the workers had irritated them that day.¹
Employees at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were offered $2-a-day wage. However, their pay was often docked in response to any errors or mistakes in their work. In addition, the owners charged employees excessively for the needles and thread that they used to make the shirtwaists.¹ At the end of each day, the workers’ earnings were greatly diminished by the fees they had to pay to work.
In addition to an unfair pay scale, garment workers of the early twentieth century were forced to work long days with few breaks. At the Triangle factory, employees had fourteen hour shifts with only one break. Several of the workers were granted extra bathroom breaks, but most were forced to urinate on the factory room floor.
Triangle employees were also insulted and assaulted on a daily basis. Criminal treatment was a primary source of insult. Harris and Blanck, assuming thievery among their employees, often had the female workers followed to the bathroom and searched every evening before closing.²
Such workplace injustices were not unique to the Triangle employees. Social unrest surrounding factory health and safety standards arose long before the fire. At the dawn of the 20th century, industrial accidents were a primary political focus for New Yorkers. From commercial train wrecks to factory accidents, jobs in the industrial field claimed the lives of approximately 100 Americans daily.²
As the leading industrial state, New York established the New York State Employer’s Liability Commission in 1909 to investigate issues of liability between factory owners and their employees. Crystal Eastman, Secretary of the commission, authored Work Accidents and the Law—"the leading study of industrial accidents" in the early 1900s.³
Eastman’s book revealed that many injuries formerly attributed to worker carelessness were really the the fault of employers; the pace of work, the lack of precautions (such as fire drills and safety training), and other structural aspects of the job were beyond employees’ control.
Eastman asserted, "If . . . investigation reveals that a considerable proportion of accidents are due to insufficient concern for the safety of workmen on the part of their employers, then social interference in some form is justified."³ Furthermore, she claimed that employers were liable for any injuries that could have been prevented through proper employee training and workplace inspections.
Eastman was not the only woman fighting for industrial workers’ rights.
According to Hilda L. Solis, Frances Perkins, a witness to the Triangle fire, used her eventual position as the Cabinet's Secretary of Labor to establish the Labor Standards Bureau—a forerunner to what is now the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
American workers today can thank Crystal Eastman for a new view on employer liability and can thank Perkins for unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, and the right to unionize.
1. Heather. Pool, “The Politics of Mourning: The Triangle Fire and Political Belonging,” Polity 44, no. 2 (2012): 182-211
2. Tony R. Sanchez, “The Triangle Fire: A Simulation-Based Lesson,” The Social Studies 97, no. 2 (2006): 62-8.
3. Marcia L. McCormick, “Consensus, Dissensus, and Enforcement: Legal Protection of Working Women from the Time of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire to Today,” New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy 14, no. 3 (March 2011): 645-95.
