In 1910, the Industrial Ladies Garment Union launched a 14-week strike on business owners who were profiting off the backs of immigrant women and girls with low wages and dangerous conditions.  The strikers eventually won some concessions from most of the business owners.  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was among the (Jewish) business owners who did not concede to workers’ demands.  One year later, almost exactly 100 years ago today, tragedy ensued with the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911.  On the eighth floor of a high rise building, a fire ignited and spread to the ninth and tenth floor.  Workers who were literally locked inside (as it was the practice of the factory owners to keep doors locked and openings inaccessible) fought to escape in elevators.  Many jumped out of windows, as the tallest ladder of the NY Fire company reached only to the 6^th floor.  In the end, the fire claimed the lives of 146 people—most of whom were young, Jewish immigrant women. 

This tragedy became a wake-up call.  The fire inspired a series of regulations about worker safety and eventually laws guaranteeing worker rights, including regulations about time-off and work-week structure.  The tragedy was and is also a reminder of the centrality of unions as a vehicle for workers to fight for their rights.  If the strike of the year before had been successful and the factory owners had been held accountable for their unholy working environment, then conditions such as open doors and better fire escapes would have been met and the story of the Triangle fire would not have had such a tragic ending.  As Melvyn Dubofsky points out, since the national regulations have been in place, unions have been a vehicle ensuring that businesses are implementing those regulations and empowering working class people and public sector employees[1].  Though like anything, unions are not perfect, they have been and remain one of the ways to establish and ensure the dignity of workers and of the workplace environment.

One hundred years later, the centennial anniversary of the Shirtwaist Factory Fire – which is March 25—is an opportunity to celebrate the courageous immigrant women and girls who fought for their rights and died because they were not guaranteed them and to acknowledge the historical connection between Jews and the labor movement. 

One hundred years later, remembering and memorializing this tragedy has become especially important as we witness the attack by public officials on unions, the effort to curtail or take away altogether the collective bargaining rights of unions, and the assault on public sector employees, especially on teachers.  We have seen this, of course, most dramatically in Wisconsin, where public sector employees and allies of all kinds have banded together to fight back against this vicious attack.   But the undermining of unions is a national concern, and we are beginning to see similar threats in Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey. 

The Jewish connection to labor and worker rights if of course not limited to the historic connection of Jewish involvement in the labor movement.  The belief that employees have rights and should be conferred basic dignity finds expression in our Torah.  In Leviticus, we read: “You shall not defraud your fellow…Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.”  In Deuteronomy, the torah is clear: “Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy…Pay them their wages each day before sunset, for he is poor and sets his heart on it.” 

The Talmud goes further in exploring rights for workers and Jewish law expands from there, affirming such principles that wages must be sufficient and bring dignity to the worker and that workers may band together for various purposes, and there must be “Shabbat” – days of rest for workers.[2]  Jewish values such as the kavod/honor or dignity of all people, the centrality of education and educators urge us to support public sector employees in their fight to keep unions strong and central in the face of such attacks.

It is imperative that we in the Jewish community draw upon our Jewish values to stand up against the attack on unions.  When we do, we will ensure that the memories of those who perished one hundred years ago in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire will be for a blessing.