Triangle Fire Was A Seminal Moment For Workplace Safety

On a Saturday afternoon in August, 1911 in New York City, hundreds of female garment workers prepared to head home at the end of their long workday.  146 of them would not make it out of the workplace alive.

Their horrendous deaths would forever link New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist factory with the struggle for workers’ rights.  Their memory would trigger a new era in workplace safety regulation.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was located in the top 3 floors of a 10 story building near New York’s Washington Square.  Triangle produced women’s blouses (which, at the time, were referred to as “shirtwaists” or “waists”).

Many of the garment workers were teenaged (as young as 14), immigrant females earning less than $400 per year.  They worked a 60-70 hour week with shifts as long as 14 hours per day.

The Triangle company, and the building in which it operated, were owed by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris.  The conditions in their garment factory have been described as typical of the time.  Regulation of workplace safety was virtually non-existent and the Triangle factory was an example of the pathetic conditions experienced by workers in the early 20th century.

One record of the events stated that “flammable textiles were stored throughout the factory, scraps of fabric littered the floors, patterns and designs on sheets of tissue paper hung above the tables, the … cutters sometimes smoked, illumination was provided by open gas lighting, and there were only a few buckets of water” available in case of fire.

Some of the factory exits were apparently locked to protect against employee theft.  Other doors only opened inwards, rendering them useless in the face of a stampede of panicked employees.  A rickety fire escape would prove to be ineffective for its intended purpose.

The fire began on the 8th floor of the building (its precise cause is still a mystery).  Workers on the 8th and 10th floors mostly escaped to safety.  For the 9th floor workers, there would be a much more tragic outcome.

By all accounts, the deadly fire spread swiftly.  The workers’ escape was prevented by a stairwell engulfed in smoke and flame, by a locked exit, a disabled elevator, and by the collapse of the only fire escape.

Many died by leaping down the elevator shaft.  Bodies were later found piled against doors and huddled together in side rooms.

For the rest, the 9th floor windows offered the only hope of escape.  Firefighters’ hoses and ladders, however, did not reach beyond the 7th floor.  Blankets and nets, held by rescuers on the ground to catch women who leaped to safety, collapsed under the force.

Horrified spectators watched as dozens of desperate young women simply flung themselves out of the windows rather than let the fire capture them.  New York City’s sidewalks received 62 young women that day.

The owners, Blanck and Harris, apparently escaped death by seeking refuge on the building’s roof.  They were later charged with manslaughter but were acquitted in relation to the circumstances leading to the deaths.

One press report commented of the trial’s outcome, “The blood of those victims was on more than two heads; on more than twenty heads, perhaps on more than a million heads. Everybody connected with the actual neglect of the fire and building laws, whether in an official or unofficial capacity, shared in the blame.”

Blanck and Harris also faced numerous civil suits and ended up settling for $75 per deceased worker.

The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire stood for 90 years as New York City’s worst example of mass workplace fatalities.  It was only eclipsed on September 11, 2001.

The building survived the fire and was refurbished.  Today, it is known as the Brown Building of Science and is part of New York University.

The workers’ deaths served to galvanize support for garment workers unions which, to that point, had enjoyed only moderate success.  Unions such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Womens’ Trade Union pressed for comprehensive safety and workers’ compensation laws.

The cries of support for improvement of unsafe working conditions were widespread.  New York’s governor appointed an investigative commission, resulting in the passage of new factory safety legislation.

The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire truly was a seminal moment in the history of American workplace safety and labour relations.  It was a hard lesson learned at the expense of 146 young lives.

Robert Smithson is a partner at Pushor Mitchell LLP in Kelowna practicing exclusively in the area of labour and employment law.  For more information about his practice, log onto www.pushormitchell.com.  Past “Legal Ease” columns, may be viewed at http://www.pushormitchell.com/law-library/publication/legal-ease.  This subject matter is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon as legal advice.