1911 Factory Fire Is Still 'Burning'

YESTERDAY WAS the 90th anniversary of the Triangle

Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911, a surreal, horrific spectacle, in which '

young women were killed. Scores of victims, trapped on the 10th floor, jumped

to the street below. Working girls in long white dresses floated downward to

their deaths, some ablaze, some in pairs holding hands.

Strangely enough, this event lives on in the city's memory as a matter of

civic pride as well as mourning. Triangle became famous as the worst industrial

factory fire in the history of capitalism, but it was also the pivotal event

that ignited a generation of political reform. "Who will protect the working

girl?" The rallying cry energized union organizing in the apparel sweatshops

then flourishing in Manhattan, but also mobilized middle-class social reformers

and church leaders. Shocked and ashamed, they pushed for breakthrough

legislation that required safe and humane working conditions. After long

political struggle, these reforms became national standards. Years later,

Frances Perkins, Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of labor, observed: "The

Triangle fire was the first day of the New Deal."

Fast-forward to May 10, 1993: A toy factory with 3,000 workers is destroyed

by fire outside Bangkok, Thailand. The Triangle fire is surpassed. At the

Kadar Industrial Toy Co., 188 workers are killed and 469 severely injured-many

having leapt in desperation from third and fourth-story windows. The details at

Kadar are hauntingly similar to Triangle -doors locked, inadequate stairways

and exits, no fire-prevention equipment or standard precautions. All but 14 of

the dead were women, some as young as 13-years-old.

These working girls in Thailand were making toys for American children. The

best corporate names-Fisher-Price, Hasbro, Tyco, Kenner and others-bought

products from this factory. The Triangle victims were from immigrant Jewish

families on the Lower East Side. The Kadar victims were Buddhists who had

migrated from rural poverty in search of wage incomes and a brighter future,

hopeful young people exploited in very similar ways.

The essential difference today is the absense of shock and shame, at least

among most Americans. Brief news reports about the worst fire in the history of

capitalism didn't mention any brand names or inform Americans that the Kadar

girls were making the toys Americans buy for their kids. When I visited Bangkok

10 months after the fire, Thai labor activists and academic supporters were

under the mistaken impression that a worldwide boycott was underway. I did not

have the heart to tell them that most Americans had never even heard of their

tragedy.

Such events, though seldom reported here, have been commonplace in low-end

sectors of the global economy. Shortly after the Kadar fire, 87 women died in a

toy-factory fire in Shenzhen, China. A few months later, 93 perished in a

textile factory at Zhuhai. Fires continue to this day, abeit on less epic

scale. A 1999 electronics-factory fire that killed 24 in Shenzhen was described

by the China Labor Bulletin as "a copycat of at least six similar fires in

south China." Four months ago, the Chowdhury Knitwear Factory in Shibpur,

Bangladesh, burned-51 dead, more than 100 injured-the worst of 11 factory fires

reported last year in Bangladesh's burgeoning garment industry. Two Chowdhury

survivors will appear at a New York University forum tomorrow evening, to

illuminate these contemporary parallels with Triangle.

Who will protect the working girl? The United States imports more than $2

billion a year in apparel from Bangladesh. We buy the stuff, benefit from the

cost-saving methods of production and then avert our gaze from the daily

realities of pointless suffering and death-just as New Yorkers did before

Triangle shocked them into action. Rationalizations for ignoring these

inhumanities are as fraudulent today as they were in 1911. Poor countries, we

are told, cannot be expected to assert our advanced social values but, as they

become wealthier (more like us), they too will insist upon safer factories,

more humane working conditions. This is a condescending fiction. In fact,

Thailand, China and other such countries already have sound laws on work and

safety. The problem is, globalization sets up fierce competition for jobs among

very poor nations. If laws are vigorously enforced, foreign-owned factories

simply leave for a more compliant poor country. After the Kadar fire, the Thai

minister of industry surveyed 244 large factories around Bangkok and found 60

percent had similar safety violations. "If we punish them, who will invest

here?" he pleaded.

The organizational structure of global commerce-multinational corporations

buying from many scattered subcontractors and suppliers-further undermines

widely accepted social standards, while it distances brand-name companies from

responsibility. Given the abundance of poor countries anxious for development,

this treadmill is unlikely to slow down on its own.

Globalization poses fiendishly complicated issues, but industrial fire

prevention isn't one of them. The technology of designing and maintaining a

safe factory is no mystery and relatively inexpensive. The reason these raw

abuses continue is that no one in the world has found the will to stop them.

But Americans could exert therapeutic influence on the entire trading system

because the U.S. market is so crucial to exporting nations.

The straightforward remedy is to enact U.S. laws requiring a standard

certification that imported goods were made in fire-safe factories, with trade

sanctions as the penalty. If the United States can invoke penalty tariffs

against knock- off CD factories in China, why can't it do the same to protect

the working girls who make shirts and shoes and toys? If this sounds intrusive,

keep in mind the FAA routinely inspects foreign-made aircraft parts overseas

before they can go into Boeing's jetliners. No one denounces that precaution as

"cultural imperialism."

Last month, the last living survivor of the Triangle fire died, at 107.Rose

Freedman became a lifelong crusader for worker safety, telling and retelling

the terrible drama she experienced that day in 1911. Now young women from

Bangladesh are picking up the thread of Rose's story. Once again, people ought

to listen.