NEW YORK--Union members, students, labor activists and firefighters gathered on March 27 at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 to remember the workers who died so needlessly and to call for safe working conditions for workers in the city, the nation and worldwide.
On March 25, 1911, a four-alarm fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on Greene Street in New York City. The bosses had locked the doors to this sweatshop in order to prevent workers' access to union organizers, and this trapped the mostly teenage immigrant women garment workers on the top floors as the fire spread. Many of the 146 women who perished died horrifically when they jumped from the ninth and tenth floors to escape the smoke and flames.
At the rally in commemoration of this terrible event, several labor representatives stressed the need to pass an uncompromised Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) now to provide those workers who are unrepresented by unions in their workplaces the freedom to organize for safer work conditions and all the other benefits that come with union membership.
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http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/01/triangle-shirtwaist-victims