'Triangle' Still Resonates

March 25 marked the 108th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which an employer’s negligence played a pivotal role in 146 young women losing their lives because the doors through which they might have escaped had been locked to keep them from stepping away from their work stations.

Ann Toback, the executive director of the Workmen’s Circle, in an op-ed column written to commemorate the tragedy, warned of a political climate in this nation that evoked the anti-worker, anti-union ethos at the time of that blaze. Noting that last June’s Supreme Court decision in the Janus case made it harder for public-employee unions to represent their members, she added, “Workplace safety regulations put in place after the 1911 fire are now in jeopardy, the right to collectively bargain, collect union dues, and to organize are all under threat of weakening of outright elimination.”