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TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE:

The Need For Labor Laws

By Dawn Kitz-Wekerle

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What Do You Know?

• What happened on March 25, 1911?

• How do Labor Laws protect workers?

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Before Labor Laws…

SWEAT SHOPS

• Overcrowded

• Hazardous Working Conditions

• Unfair Wages

• Child Labor

• Poor ventilation

• Dangerous Machinery

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March 25, 1911• It was a warm spring Saturday in NYC, March 25, 1911. 

On the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building just off of Washington Square in NYC, employees of the

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory began putting away their work. The company employed approximately 500 workers,

mostly young female immigrants who worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek, sewing

clothes for a wage of a dollar fifty per week.

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FIRE!

• At about 4:30 p.m., a fire broke out in the 8th floor cutting room and spread rapidly, consuming thousands of pounds of fabric. Panicked workers tried to escape. But some of the doors were locked, a tactic the factory's bosses used to keep employees at their sewing machines. Other exits were blocked and there were no sprinklers.

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TRAGEDY….

• Within 15 minutes, dozens inside the factory were dead. Stunned passers-by watched as others jumped to their deaths, their skirts ablaze.

•The death toll reached 146.

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Labor Law Reform

• The public outrage over the horrific loss of life led to the creation of a Factory Investigating Commission which undertook a thorough examination of safety and working conditions in New York factories. Their recommendations led to laws reforming the state labor code. 

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Labor Laws Regulate:

• Safety

• Wages

• Health Benefits

• Retirement Security

• Employees’ Rights

• Employment of Minors

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Assignment

• List 5 ways in which Child Labor Laws protect you.

• You may use the following websites, or you may find your own.

• http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/minors.shtm

• http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp18.htm

• http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/narrative6.html