Workers Still Need a Voice

[deborahjross]

True 100 Years Ago, and Still True Today: Workers Need a Voice
by: Eliseo Medina, Secretary-Treasurer, Service Employees International Union

One hundred years ago today, the garment workers of New York were galvanized into action by the gruesome and unnecessary deaths of 146 workers, mostly immigrant women, at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Many of the workers burned to death because doors were locked, while scores of others died trying to escape by leaping from the 8th, 9th and 10th floors. After the funerals, tens of thousands of working New Yorkers marched, and workers demanded change and a voice in the workplace.

Today, workers in America, especially immigrant workers, find ourselves again in need of a voice. Unionization rates are 6.9% in the private sector; disparities in wealth are greater than at any time since 1928, and corporate America has consolidated its capital and its political power.

Read the rest of the article here.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

My maternal great-grandfather was a union activist and martyr. He was sacked from his mining job and black-listed because he spearheaded a campaign for safety lanterns for miners in the South Welsh coal field. He had a wife and three small children whom he could not feed, as none of the mine-owners or any other business who employ him. He ended up committing suicide. The small, poor village where he lived had a whip-round and bought a sewing machine for my great grandmother so she could support herself and her children. She lived to be 101. One of her sons became another union leader, another went to university. Unions save lives. They matter.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing this inspiring story. My father was a union activist for the International Typographical Union, and when he became the target of a McCarthy witch hunt, the union stood up for him and helped pay for his legal defense. Things like safe working conditions, sick pay and a decent wage aren't handed out by beneficent corporations. They're a result of workers uniting together, taking care of themeselves.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Your father sounds splendid. It makes me spit when people demonise unions, because at the core that are about people like him standing up for fairness, justice, safety and equality.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Spitting here, too.

I've been thinking of using the internet/POD technology to put together a volume of my father's papers, speeches, letters. I need to talk to my sister about it, and I won't have time to gather and scan the material for a while, but the idea keeps nudging at me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It sounds like a worthwhile project to me.