We Never Forget: April 24, 2013 Rana Plaza Factory Collapse
-Savar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh -1,134 killed, 2,500 injured -Suspect: Sohel Rana, Charge: Murder -“The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134.”
Photograph by Sharat Chowdhury [edited] Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013, at Dhaka, Bangladesh -Board of the Missing, taken April 27, 2013
From Warehouse Workers United – Statement from Kalpona Akter on Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013
Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of workers lost in this tragic event.It must be said, these tragedies can be prevented by multinational corporations like Walmart and the Gap that operate in Bangladesh. Because of these companies’ negligence and willful ignorance, garment workers are in danger every day because of the unsafe working conditions.
As we learn more details, we will better understand the brands that were manufactured in these factories, but we already know that the largest retailers in the world hold tremendous power to transform conditions for garment workers – mostly young women – in Bangladesh.
Today’s news is yet another reminder that Walmart and the Gap must immediately adopt the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a transparent and legally binding agreement that includes worker representation, independent building inspections, worker rights training, public disclosure and a long-overdue review of safety standards. The safety agreement is the first step toward ensuring no more lives are lost.
More from Warehouse Workers United:
Kalpona is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She is a former garment worker and is currently in the United States calling on retailers like Walmart, the Gap and Disney to lead on improving working conditions and adopting fires safety standards in Bangladesh.Today, international worker rights groups are calling for immediate action from international corporations and brands following the horrific news of a deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, in Dhaka Bangladesh. The collapse of the eight story building that housed five factories and a mall, has reportedly killed at least 80 people and injured over 800[*]. For the last month Kalpona has been touring the United States with Sumi Abedin, a young garment worker who jumped out of a third story window to save her life as the Tazreen factory burned killing on 112.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 10, 1922 Washington, D. C. – President Refuses Petitions for Political Prisoners
From the Vancouver Daily World (British Columbia) of May 2, 1922:
From the Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan) of May 4, 1922:
From the Oklahoma Leader of May 9, 1922:
[-from page 1]
CREDIT CHILDREN FOR HARDING ACT ———- President Calls For Reports On Politicals ———-
By LAURENCE TODD Federated Press Staff Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 8.-President Harding has called for reports from the department of justice on the Philadelphia [?] I. W. W. cases.
News of this response to renewed pressure for release of the political prisoners was given by the attorney general’s office on Monday, to a delegation from the Women’s International league, which on Sunday adopted resolutions demanding general amnesty. Action by this national organization of women was prompted by the coming of the Children’s Crusade and the hostile reception given the children and their mothers by President Harding and his associates.
Credit for apparent anxiety on the part of the administration to get rid of the issue of amnesty is given to the children, who have touched the hearts of even the most hardened politicians and idlers in the capital. Something near indignation is manifested by the general public as it learns of the driving of these children away from the president’s church on Sunday on the pretext that the place of worship was already crowded to the limit of the fire regulations. Moving picture men pose the weary and work-bowed mothers and the tired little girls and boys, and local newspapers publish many groups of them with sympathetic comment.
The Crusaders are digging in to make the fight, however long, to change the attitude of Harding, whether they soften his heart or no.
[Reference to Philadelphia makes little sense here. Most of the families represented by Children’s Crusade were from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.)
[-from page 4]
CHILD CRUSADERS STAY AT CAPITAL ———- President Refuses To See Petitions For Prisoners ———-
WASHINGTON, May 9.-Even though President Harding refused to see Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare and the children’s crusade, the results of the trip will be far from in vain. When Attorney General Daugherty, to whom the President referred them, was seen he stated that there would no general amnesty decree, that each case would be considered on its merits and action taken only upon application for pardon being made by the “offenders.”
“We shall stay here on the doorstep of the federal government until the fathers of these children and all other political prisoners are released,” Mrs. O’Hare has announced. Living quarters have been provided by the Farmer-Labor party and the American Civil Liberties union.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911 “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II
From Life and Labor of May 1911:
The Triangle Fire
By Martha Bensley Bruere
Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?
Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:
NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify their customers that they are in good working order. HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.
The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 4, 1911 Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:
THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY
BY LOUIS DUCHEZ
Photographs by American Press Ass’n.
[Part II of II.]
Violations of the law? Yes, enough to hang half a dozen rich exploiters and politicians. But these men won’t hang.
The owner of the building claimed he lived up to the letter of the law. So did the owners of the shirtwaist concern, Blanck and Harris. They blame the city officials. The State Commission of Labor also blames the city officials. On the other hand, the city officials are hunting for someone to point to. One of these gentlemen divides the guilt between God and the “public conscience.”
The more important facts, however, are as follows: While the holocaust was taking place the superintendent of public buildings, Rudolph P. Miller, was on a pleasure trip to Panama. Under questioning conducted by Fire Marshal Beers he admitted that the Asch building, in which the fire took place, had not been inspected since it was built, ten years ago. He said he was not even sure that he passed on the building before it was occupied. Miller is not an architect; he is simply a civil engineer-with a “pull.” In his testimony he also admitted that he knew of “graft” from building owners being accepted by inspectors. Miller blamed the police department.
According to the state law, “fire-proof” buildings need not put up more than one fire escape. And that’s all the Asch building had. And this one was useless. When the flames heated the flimsy iron work. it bent like wire. Besides, the scaling ladders were not fit to use and the extension ladders reached only to the 6th floor. The hose, too, was rotten, and the fire apparatus was only so in name. Then iron shutters blocked the fire escape, such as it was.
The locked doors have been mentioned. There was no fire escape to the roof. The machines were so closely packed together, in order to save space. that a panic resulted when the fire first started. Large piles of combustible goods obstructed every aisle and opening, also, if the building and conditions had been deliberately planned for the cremation of human beings, it could not have been more perfect.
To look at the Asch building since the fire one could not tell from the outside that anything had happened to it, were it not for the broken windows. As a matter of fact, the damage only reached $5,000. Everything was insured-but the slaves.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 9, 1911 Mass Meeting at Metropolitan Opera House Stands for Fire Prevention
From The Survey of April 8, 1911:
THE COMMON WELFARE
PREVENTION OF FACTORY FIRES
Prevention was the keynote of the whole week in discussion of the Triangle factory fire in New York and in other industrial cities which have begun to take stock of their risks. There were many meetings, chief of which was the citizens’ mass meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, reported on succeeding pages, which resulted in the appointment of a committee of five made up of Eugene A. Philbin, chairman; Mary A. Dreier, Edward T. Devine, William Jay Schieffelin, Lillian D. Wald, and Peter Brady. The New York American has organized a committee on prevention of which Ernest Flagg, an eminent architect, is chairman and the other members are Fire Chief Croker, P. Tecumseh Sherman, formerly state commissioner of labor, and William Archer, a builder.
A conference under call of R. Fulton Cutting, president of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, appointed a committee consisting of Mr. Cutting, Franklin B. Kirkbride, Leopold Plaut, Homer Folks and John A. Kingsbury which, in conjunction with the mass meeting committee, is organizing a permanent body on fire prevention.
On Wednesday (after this issue had gone to press) public burial was given the eight unclaimed bodies and the workers of the city planned an enormous silent parade in their honor.
One of the events of the week was the opening of the Triangle Waist Company in another building. A violation of the law was immediately filed against it for installing a row of sewing machines in front of the exit to the fire-escapes. The proprietor asked the Ladies ‘ Shirtwaist Union to organize his shop, but no action was taken.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 8, 1911 Women March in Cold Rain for Unidentified Victims of Triangle Fire
From the New York Tribune of April 6, 1911:
There was majestic silence and sullen rain. But it was a silence that spoke. Their fellow workers to the number 145 had been launched into eternity as the result of the Asch Building fire on March 25. And so [thousands] marched in murmurless protest through the principal streets of the city yesterday.
The steady downpour did not divert girls who were without umbrellas, without hats, without overshoes and rubber coats from their determination to show public honor to fellow workers who had perished…..
If the day had been filled with sunshine the funeral procession would have been impressive. Perhaps, however, there would then have been the chance to minimize the intensity of feeling existing among the marching members of the sympathizing unions. Only a high devotion and sense of duty could be responsible for yesterday’s protest.
Low hanging clouds and fog shrouded the tops of buildings. The Metropolitan tower was invisible above its clock. There was the suggestion of smoke in the atmosphere. The streets were filled with puddles of water. Women in lamb’s wool coats, accustomed to ride in automobiles, were splashed by passing vehicles as they trudged along in the beating rain, anxious to demonstrate the sympathy felt by the Woman Suffrage party. Hundreds of thousands stood on the sidewalks, their umbrellas appropriately indicating unbroken borders of black. Policemen, mounted and afoot, wore regulation black raincoats.
There was no playing of plaintive music, no muffled drum beat. The spectacle was without ostentation, flourish or display. Banners bore the legend “We mourn our loss” in black and white. There was a solemn expression on the faces of those who marched and those who watched from office buildings, stores and private houses. Flags on public buildings were at half-mast; thousands of other structures were draped in funeral decorations.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 7, 1911 New York City – 100,000 Parade in Tribute to the Unidentified Dead
From the New York Evening World of April 5, 1911:
The funeral of the unidentified victims of the Washington place disaster this afternoon was made memorable by parades of mourning in which probably 100,000 members of labor unions took part in Manhattan, and 5,000 in Brownsville and East New York. Owing to the confusion attending the formation of the Manhattan parade it was late in starting. Once it got under way business generally came to a halt in the district between Washington Square and Thirty-fourth street in and adjacent to Fifth avenue….
The great massing of men and women preparatory to the start of the parade, the many mourning emblems, the evident depth of the sorrow of the marchers, the silent determination of the moving throngs would have been impressive enough on a bright, cheerful New York spring day. In the gloom of fog, with a misty rain falling and the streets sticky and slippery, the slowly passing columns, sombre in black garments and partially concealed from the view of those above by black, shining umbrellas, took on a sullen aspect almost awe-inspiring…..
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 4, 1911 New York, New York – Rose Schneiderman Speaks at Metropolitan Opera House
From The New York Times of April 3, 1911:
MASS MEETING CALLS FOR NEW FIRE LAWS ———- Metropolitan Opera House Gathering Decides to Name a Standing Committee on Protection. ———-
WORKERS NOT IN ACCORD ———- Woman Union Leader Says They Have Lost Faith In the Public and Must Rely on Themselves. ———-
More people went to the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday to participate in the council on the Asch Building fire disaster than could find seats in the grand tier, where the boxes were reserved, or in the orchestra and galleries, where they were open to all. Those in the grand tier came in automobiles, and were admitted at a special side entrance opened thirty minutes before the other doors. Those in the orchestra floor for the main part were from the upper west side, while the east siders overflowed one gallery after another until they had packed the house.
The meeting, which lasted from 3 o’clock until 5:20, proved to be more cosmopolitan than harmonious. The men in the upper galleries, instead of applauding the programme brought forward by the leaders to obtain better fire protection laws, reserved their loudest cheers for those who dissented from the programme, on the ground that citizens’ committees were incapable of doing any real good and had always proved a failure.
The outcome of the meeting was the adoption of resolutions by a partial vote calling for the creation of a permanent committee to advocate new legislation and see that there is no official neglect to enforce such laws as now exist.
The dissenters from this programme held that there would be no improvement for the working classes until in class solidarity they demanded it at the polls and through committees of their own. They advocated the organization of working people into Assembly district committees and the giving of fire inspectorship privileges to labor union officials.
The Speakers Interrupted.
Every little while from the topmost gallery shouts from Socialists interrupted the speakers, and once the meeting got away from the Chairman’s control while those upstairs cheered for the interrupters and those below attempted to hiss them down. There was one moment when feeling grew tense to a snapping point, and the audience was held too closely by the speaker’s words to interrupt or applaud as the girl who had been speaking went back up the stage to her seat.
Rose Schneiderman, who led the workers out of the Triangle factory in their strike two years ago and bailed them out after being arrested, found words difficult when she tried to speak. She stood silent for a moment, and then began to speak hardly above a whisper. But the silence was such that everywhere they carried clearly……
From the Jewish Daily Forward of January 10, 1910:
The “Triangle” company…With blood this name will be written in the history of the American workers’ movement, and with feeling will this history recall the names of the strikers of this shop-of the crusaders.
City Hall, New York City,
-December 28, 1910
Testimony before the New York State Senate and Assembly Joint Investigating Committee on Corrupt Practices and Insurance Companies Other Than Life Insurance:
Judge M. Linn Bruce, Counsel
Chief Edward F Croker, NYC Fire Department
Bruce: How high can you successfully combat a fire now? Croker: Not over eighty-five feet. Bruce: That would be how many stories of an ordinary building? Croker: About seven. Bruce: Is this a serious danger? Croker: I think if you want to go into the so-called workshops which are along Fifth Avenue and west of Broadway and east of Sixth Avenue, twelve, fourteen or fifteen story buildings they call workshops, you will find it very interesting to see the number of people in one of these buildings with absolutely not one fire protection, with out any means of escape in case of fire.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 2, 1910 Chicago, Illinois – Report on Strike of 41,000 Garment Workers, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of December 1910:
[Part I.]
PERSONS who look upon the present Garment Workers’ strike in Chicago as a pure and simple labor battles are securing only an outward glimpse of the situation.
The strike itself, truly enough, was brought on by a revolt of the poor under paid girls and boys, men and women. It was a simultaneous upheaval of over 41,000 garment workers brought on by sixteen girls against petty persecution, low wages, abuse and long hours, an upheaval, unorganized at the start, which later took on the form of a fight for recognition of the union.
Behind the scenes, however, shut off from the public view, there is a mortal combat of big and small interests going on. A combat that is likely to settle, once for all, a battle of many years’ standing.
Like every other trustified industry, the production of clothing was at first limited to a number of independent manufacturers. These concerns unhampered by much competition grew to giant proportions.
Chicago, however, grew as rapidly as did the concerns. The city was soon divided into neighborhoods of various nationalities. Among these nationalities there were many venturesome persons who went into the tailoring business and made it a point to appeal to people of their own tongue.
Thus it was that gradually the business of the big concerns began to decrease. The more the city grew in population the more small tailor shops sprang up until they were growing, it seemed, over night, like mushrooms.
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