Today in class we studied the relationship between Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" (an attempt to educate Americans about the plight of poor American workers) and The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911...one of the deadliest workplace disasters in the history of the United States. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers. Most of the victims were young immigrant girls who lived in tenement housing on the lower east side of Manhattan. Our class discussion evoked many thoughts about "the cries of young immigrant girls" in 1911 and of the condition of sweatshop workers in the United States and around the world...
Cries of the Heart- Memories of Immigrant Girls
"I used to creep up on the roof
of the tenement and talk out my heart to the stars and the sky. Why were we
cramped into the crowded darkness? Why are we wasting with want?
Where is
America?"
"I liked music. I liked
lectures. I wanted to learn things;
I wanted to learn everything.
The only thing
is, the time; I needed time."
At the turn of the century, New York City's garment district employed over 100,000 workers. In 1948, over 350,000 worked in the NYC garment factories. Today there are approximately 200,000 garment workers employed in The United States of America, mostly in California and New York. Today, most garment workers are also immigrant women (mostly Asian and Latino) and shockingly 50% of all garment factories in the United States have serious violations which classify them as sweatshops!
According to Marissa Nunico (Director of The Garment Worker Center)...
“the notion that we still don’t have sweatshops in the United States is simply not true...
it’s important that people are aware of the conditions that exist like poor ventilation and just terrible safety violations.”
Locking workers into the factory (just like Triangle Shirtwaist) during operating hours is still a major safety violation! Another common practice (where many workers are "illegal" and don't speak English) is wage theft. This is the practice of violating minimum wage or overtime pay laws. For example, according to the United States Department of Labor...
90% of garment workers in Los Angeles do not receive overtime pay, even when they work more than 40 hours, 67% are paid less than minimum wage, and 98% work in environments with serious health and safety violations.
What would Upton Sinclair say?!?
Watch a clip from "Made in L.A."
