100 years ago, America was a Galtian paradise. Those in pursuit of capital could do anything they wished and the theft of labor was easy and supported by local, state and federal governments. Lots and lots of very bad things happened. One was the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. 146 workers–women, mostly recent immigrants–died when a fire broke out in the sweatshop. It was the Union movement that forced changes and still fights to keep them in place. Unions interfere with Galtian fantasies and that is why the wingnuts are so manic about destroying them and the right to organize.
This week the SEIU blog put up an interactive guide to safty changes that Unions have delivered for all Americans as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire:
By following the link and mousing over the numbers you’ll learn about some of the benefits we all have thanks to organized labor. This is important to remember as our Galtian Overlords and their pet politicians are busy trying to overturn the last 100 years of progress and return to that time when capital could steal any labor, damage any environment and take any action in the pursuit of profit–without any restrictions or oversight.
As a Country we have a choice to move back to a Gilded Age or to move forward. That choice is driving almost all of our current politics.
Cheers
BGinCHI
Dennis, since it looks like Bachmann is going to become a candidate for what you (rightly) call The Confederate Party, and since she’s from the North, can you please refer to her as a Copperhead from now on?
All northern candidates should get this moniker.
I would be amenable, though, to calling Trump, if he runs, a Dickhead. It just fits better.
MikeJ
Bah. If all you care about is keeping people from dying this is all fine. What about my god given right to profit from your blood?
Dennis G.
@BGinCHI: Would Copperheaded Know-nothing Harpy work?
Mr Stagger Lee
Perhaps John may have heard of this disaster. The Fairmont Co. mining disaster which claimed to the lives of 362 men and boys, lead to implementation of mine safety standards. Though it would decades more.
BGinCHI
@Dennis G.: The judges will accept that. But we’re gonna need either bigger stickers or bigger bumpers.
JITC
This is great and really well presented.
The problem is, the anti-union forces out there acknowledge all this. They agree that unions help bring some important worker safety agencies and laws to bear in this country and that it was good.
But their next line is that since the laws and agencies exist, unions are no longer necessary.
Focusing on the Triangle fire (100 years ago), child labor, and other exploitative policies of a century ago are not the arguments that will work here.
The truth is, there are current cases where employers are crossing the line, breaking laws and pushing to the edges of worker safety and fairness – and the unions are still needed to protect workers in these situations.
Where are the fancy interactive charts and pictures discussing things unions are doing for regular, everyday people right now? All workers, not just union workers, are in real danger if union power is diminished. That’s what we need to talk about – not 100 year old fires (as tragic and significant as they are).
Shadow's Mom
Thank you for this article. I’ve shared it within my community. I was saddened when classmates in my Philosophy of Public Admin class last quarter voiced the opinion that ‘unions were needed 100 years ago, but we have federal regulations now that protect us.’ I pointed out that laws and regulations can be changed and that the unions continue to work towards the protection and benefit of all workers.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Shadow’s Mom: Wow. It’s like a weird strain of anarchism.
Maude
@Barb (formerly Gex):
I have thought that the tea party Republicans are a form of anarchists.
They themselves are a law unto themselves.
There was a hideous chicken factory fire in the south in the past ten or so years.
JPL
@JITC: Many large companies pay a higher wage in order to keep their employees happy.
The last time the Wisconsin teachers went out on strike was before union days.
GA is a right to work state. What that means is they can fire without cause. A few months ago an employee was fired because he could not get to work during an ice storm. The roads were closed. The news media covered the story of the employee but would not name the company involved. If the company involved was named, at least I would have the choice to boycott them.
piratedan
@Shadow’s Mom: then I would direct them to go ahead and look to either being employed in the Mining industry or a job in Offshore drilling for future careers, safe in the knowledge that their employers have their best interests in mind.
Dennis G.
@JITC: It is not like these laws are no longer needed. In 2009 the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4,340 workers were killed on the job in the U.S. In foreign countries there is a fire like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire almost every year. Here is a description of one from December 2010:
This disregard for the lives of workers is where we are going. This chart is good to remind us what we have and how many had to die to get there. The race to the bottom, the human trafficking and sweatshops of the world show us where the adversaries of Unions and the right to organize want to take us.
It is a choice that each of us should make with eyes wide open.
Cheers
WereBear
The way a human brain is built undercuts such thinking, I swear. “We have regulations now” totally misses the point that without organized pressure, they will go away again!
You know, Americans just had it too good, for too long. They think this is just the way it is, instead of the product of a lot of sweat and blood.
Suffern ACE
@WereBear: We don’t think progress works backwards, and regression can last an awful long time.
kdaug
The architects of our doom
Around their tables sit
And in their thrones of power
Condemn those they’ve cast adrift
Echoes down the city street
Their harpies laughter rings
Waiting for the curtain call
Oblivion’s in the wings
__
The casket is empty
Abandon ye all hope
They ran off with the money
And left us with the rope
scav
OT Congrats to the German Greens. 24.2 in Baden-Wuerttemberg! OK bit of a tailwind from Japan but far above the usual 5-8-10% that had stuck in my head as expected/normal.
gwangung
Two words: British Petroleum.
JPL
Unions are the only lobbyists working for the middle class. If they were to disappear the politicos would only listen to corporations. The unions are not going to make great strides with our economy in such a mess but without them you can betcha that regulations will be debased or repealed entirely.
Nicole
@JITC: Follow the link and below the interactive are stats on the current leading causes of death in the workplace- the SEIU wants a more attention paid to workplace violence, for one.
General Stuck
The wingnuts cannot stop the unstoppable inertia toward a more perfect union, from the fine liberal blueprint the founders gave us to make one. Lots of bumps, some of them big bumps along the way.
They have done all they could to freeze time for maximum profit, but still the boat sails forward, and it will not go back to the Gilded Age. When they realize their efforts are in vain to turn back the clock, they may well try to, and some are, trying sink the American Boat, rather than surrender to what this country is destined to become, and always has been, since the founders somehow rose above their own imperfections, and gave us something from and for the future. But that is the limit of their power, and it is not to be taken lightly. I think it will either become a much better country, or some semblance of a fascist dystopia, when the witching hour comes. Maybe in our lifetime, or soon after.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Right now, my facebook page has gone all to shit over my tendency to make people uncomfortable with their Conservatism/Libertarianism.
My crime was to post this in a critical way:
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/25/unpaid-jobs-the-new-normal/
Obviously, I hate America, Sweet Baby Jesus and the Troops, and oppose a flag burning amendment.
stuckinred
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
’Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin’
They complained in the East
They are paying too high
They say that your ore ain’t worth digging
That it’s much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing
mr. whipple
@General Stuck:
Aren’t we already there?
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Can anybody name a historical step forward that Conservatives/Libertarians wrought?
Slavery? Nope, they wanted to continue and expand that, and acted like a bunch of whiny assed titty babies ever since. They fought expanding the franchise, fought food and medicine safety, fought currency reform, fought bank regulations, fought ending legalized segregation and discrimination.
Then once beaten, they whined like the bunch of hysterical little bitches they are about how they would have made it right in their own time.
My ass.
scav
OK, I’m clearly monarch of OT today, but this made me laugh.
The American right is trapped in a hyperbolic and dysfunctional world: To have credibility within the Republican party is to have none outside it. They act as if all their Kool-Aid has been spiked
Granted, I may be verging on hysterics at this point.
Tonal Crow
@JITC: The counterargument is that beneficial changes are not permanent, but need consistent support to remain in place. Much as in “the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance”, for example the backsliding on invasive warrantless spying in the decades since Watergate gave it such a bad scent.
jeff
I remember this every time I walk by the factory building. One thing I’ll say about NYU owning the building is that they also have one of the best Union history libraries in the world.
Tamiment
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/
General Stuck
@mr. whipple:
Maybe a mini Gilded Age, but like the original, there will be a period after of progressivism, or progressity, . It’s all in my book of futures, chapter 12 of Stuck’s Nastydamnus.
Tonal Crow
@scav: Exactly. The Republicans are crazy, and should be laughed at rather than engaged. We need to discredit the idea of a Republican having any sort of power.
arguingwithsignposts
I would just mention that it’s cool that the infographic is in javascript (from my reading of the code) instead of Flash, which means it shows up on all those iDevices too. wicked smart, those folks.
James E Powell
@JPL:
Isn’t that the way is it now? I’m not saying that unions are useless, but it’s pretty clear that they are not respected in the congress.
WaterGirl
@arguingwithsignposts: You are right, because I have a flash blocker installed, and this graphic shows up. :-)
How’s it going?
General Stuck
@WaterGirl:
Which flash blocker? My ad block for FF is no longer working on BJ>
WaterGirl
I use Safari AdBlocker, so that probably won’t help you on FF. Last time my ad blocker stopped working it was because I had updated my OS so it needed a later version of AdBlocker. So maybe some version of something changed with the site upgrade, and maybe a later version of your ad blocker would help?
Luthe
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
slag
The graph at the bottom left is quite striking yet surprisingly easy to miss.
Of course, many libertarians, if not arguing that unions are no longer needed now that they have made their gains, will happily speculate about how free market forces would have done all this stuff better than unions ever could have. Don’t forget…libertarianism can never fail.
Boots Day
The worst tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is that it led to greater unionization of the American worker.
Signed, Gov. Scott Walker
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Tonal Crow: Or, in a sound bite they might understand, freedom isn’t free.
Mike in NC
Every day I see “Letters to the Editor” in assorted newspapers where wingnuts persist in calling unions a symptom of socia1ism or something worse. Sad how far this country has devolved in the past 30 or so years.
Mike G
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
they whined like the bunch of hysterical little bitches they are about how they would have made it right in their own time.
But of course. After all, Alabama officially repealed its miscegenation laws in the year 2000. Those crazy progressives in the South Carolina statehouse did it way back in 1998.
38% of voters in South Carolina and 41% in Alabama voted AGAINST the repeal of those laws in statewide referenda.
Fuck these people with a rusty chainsaw.
forked tongue
Just piping up to say that I don’t think any observation of the Triangle fire is complete anymore without some reference to John Tierney’s immortal 1999 column in the NYTimes arguing that that incident has been totally sensationalized and that the reforms put in place in its aftermath have done more harm than good:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/18/nyregion/the-big-city-a-1911-fire-as-good-tv-bad-history.html?scp=4&sq=John+Tierney+Triangle+Shirtwaist+Fire&st=nyt
JITC
@JPL:
Yes, unions are doing important things right now today. But those things get little to no coverage in the media, or are reported on so badly you don’t know the name of the company involved.
So people have the impression that (and therefore anti-unioners have the ability to argue) that unions are no longer necessary.
Bmaccnm
@forked tongue: Oh, man, I read that feccking thing. It isn’t good for me to do that, because I have the strong desire to set John Tierney on fire and push him off a 10th floor balcony. “good melodrama but bad history.” Fuck you.
harlana
How many of you here have worked hours you were not paid for (that is if you are an hourly employee)? Because I needed a job so bad, I put in lots of hours regularly for months that I did not get paid for because my employer could not afford to pay me for more than 37.5 hours a week. Yeh, it’s illegal and stuff but you do what you have to do when the boot is on your neck. There is no union presence here where I live. I suspect unions were also responsible for people being paid for the hours they work. Simple concept, I know, but nothing would tickle these bastards more than to squeeze the work blood out of us helpless, terrified turnips until there is nothing left but a petrified peel. I am so thoroughly disgusted and revolted to the point I can barely follow this story. I mean, we’re going after a fucking mural?? What, they are afraid of a painting, for cripes sake? Come on.
Anyway, after busting my ass for months without pay, I got laid off. (It goes without saying I had no benefits.) This, and nothing less, is what they want. And then on top of that, more. I don’t suppose they will be happy until we are selling our organs and plasma in order to survive.
Mike Toreno
There was no Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Take a look at this.
John Tierney proves by rigorous economic analysis that employers had to provide safe working conditions in order to get workers, so such an event as the so-called fire couldn’t have happened.
This mistaken belief in a workplace fire reminds me of a similar misconception surrounding the Titanic disaster. Did you know that some of the survivors in the lifeboats thought they saw the ship break in two just before it went down? Scientific analysis, however, proved that such a thing was impossible. It’s interesting, isn’t it, the funny things people think they see. Thank goodness we have scientists and analysts to set us right.
Dennis G.
@forked tongue:
Ah, the very famous “some economists say” defense. Of course one can find some economists to say anything, but just because they say it does not make it worth repeating. But “some economists say” is at the core of all glibertarian nonsense. It is Galtian fairy dust.
Reading this reminded me that Tierney has built a career with his pearls of Galtian wisdom. It is why I’ve long since stopped reading any of his fantasyland drivel.
Cheers
Karen
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
That’s what the Galtian overlords are working towards and I always knew it.
They have no interest in lowering our salaries.
Their eventual goal is to have us work for free. Or even to own us. Indentured servitude ring a bell? How about serf?
People better vote while they still can.
But in a way this depresses me beyond belief because this is the worst case scenario I’ve known has been the final goal.
There is no law. Law is whatever those in charge say it is. Law is to be obeyed by whoever those in charge say it is.
I didn’t think I’d see this in my lifetime but then again, I never thought I’d see a lot of what’s already happening in my lifetme either.
How long do you all think it’ll take for the Koch brothers to just dispense with the facade of Congress and the Supreme Court and just appoint whoever the fuck they want?
There’s a Constitution still but what does it mean if it can be stomped on at will?
The only comfort I have is people are slowly realizing that all the stripping of their rights effects THEM not just the “poor.” And once they truly understand that, like they do in other countries, they’ll revolt.
bjacques
@47 harlana:
Many years ago I worked for a contractor at NASA. The contractor, whose name has changed many times, originally shared a name with a hallowed aerospace company. That’s all they shared. Since this company existed only to fulfill an operations contract, we got none of the benefits associated with the parent company. We were “salaried” engineers, so we didn’t get paid overtime. However, we were strongly encouraged to put in at least 2 hours of unpaid overtime, for getting dinged on the annual performance review values of “strongly encouraged.”
I used to think of this as a sleazy way to make us take a 5% pay cut (2 hrs / 40 hrs), so that every time the contract was up for renewal, they could show how “cost-effectively” they were, in order to win the bid.
It was only a few months ago I worked out the real scam. A standard “professional” working year is 2080 hours (52 x 40), not counting sick days (6 days per year). Paid vacation was 2 weeks up to the first 5 years, then 3 weeks up to 19 years. 2 weeks = 80 hours; by “encouraging” 2 weeks unpaid overtime, the contractor clawed back those 2 weeks vacation and then some.
Basically they profited coming and going. As far as I know, they’re still doing it. Bastards.
People think when you win rights, you win them for good. Having done my time in the late 1980s defending women’s clinics, I figured that once we got through the Reagan/Bush I years, we were home free. But by avoiding a frontal assault on Roe v Wade, anti-choice people instead managed, by law and by threats, to make getting an abortion a practical impossibility in some states and a real hassle in others. And this was during the “liberal” Clinton presidency (somewhat hamstrung by the 1994 Contract on America).
The other side never sleeps. Remember that. Remember that for generations.
Liberty60
As an architect, I have seen how not only do building code regulations and architect/ engineer licensing laws keep people safe, but what is surprising is how they actually help keep jobs and build wealth.
When a real estate investor wants to buy a building, the level of assurance provided by the fact that he knows the building was designed by a licenced architect and engineer, the plans checked by impartial city plan check engineers, goverend by strict building fire, life safety and structural regulations, and the resulting construction inspected by impartial city inspectors is what reduces financial risk to the investor.
Further, in the 19th Century, large cities routinely had massive devastating urban fires that swept thru entire blocks at a time, wiping out thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in investment. There are millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of capital investments today that are safe and secure, thanks to building codes and regulations.
Basically, the Progressive ideals are NOT just emotional appeals to worker rights and contentment; wealth creation relies on the stability and security that progressivism provides, instead of the risk and instability of the unfettered marketplace.
Captain Howdy
Do Galtian crotch pheasants ever participate in these threads, defending Libertopia?
Put another way, are there any reasonable websites or bloggers who can make an argument for the cause? Reason and the Cato Institute are supposed to be the intellectual standard-bearers but … is that they best they can do?
Wolfdaughter
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
And as Dennis points out, they claim that the regs are no longer needed because things are all golden now.
I’m 65. In the past 50 years or so, every time anything was proposed which would improve the lives of the average workers, or a modest increase in the minimum wage was proposed, I’ve heard the screams of anguish from the CofC, etc. Prices were going to go UP! All sorts of businesses would fail! The dire predictions never happened. Except off-shoring and outsourcing, of course.
I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but I say it now: conservatives and glibertarians (at least those in the top echelons) are EVIL.
El Cid
Thanks to all this union and government meddling, we suffer from extremely over-inflated wage and benefit rates. If not for this Luddite anti-market hysteria, the US would be better able to compete with Haitian manufacturing.
Modusoperandi
Maude #9 “There was a hideous chicken factory fire in the south in the past ten or so years.”
Fire aside, I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much of a market for hideous chickens.