Friday, March 25, 2011

Triangle



















I've written about fire disasters in the USA before, and they all have one other common thread: lack of safety standards/overcrowding. Most have another commonality: greed of the building/business owners.

Today's the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City: a fireproof building with locked exit. Wouldn't want workers getting away with anything to marginally reduce profits . . .

As a result of the fire, union activities and safety regulations were strengthened -- only to be weakened a century later. What's going on now? Wall Street screws up and the Tea Party/GOP turns on unions, the working class and civil society, not to mention the social safety network. Bastards in 1911 and bastards in 2011.  Let's hope the majority of voters undermined by these fuckers get out to vote in 2012 -- using their minds and ballots as much as their emotion. 
   












Today's Rune: Warrior.

5 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

I couldn't've said it any better. I'm puzzled as to why some folks think we can improve our economy with union busting.

Anonymous said...

Attacking the union people and the middle class in general is a way of distracting folks from the real culprits, Wall Street and the bankers. The tea party governor of Maine wants to remove the mural from the states Labor building that depicts child labor and women because it is unfair to business. What ever happened to the populace of Maine that they even voted this guy in?

ivan@creativewriting.ca said...

I certainly agree with JR and Anonynous.

BTW: Thank you for the get well wishes!

Charles Gramlich said...

Yeah, the fact that if any single work steals it's relatively nothing whereas when the CEO's do it it affects millions. And yet lets come down hardest on the individual workers. Bizarre.

Erik Donald France said...

Thank y'all for the comments -- much appreciated!