BUSI 343 EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS1
The Unforgivable Fire at Triangle Factory: Was the Lesson Learnt?
The fire that broke out in New York’s Triangle Waist Company in 1911 continues to
serve as a harrowing testimony to the inhuman conditions that poor and struggling industrial
workers had to thrive in ("Cornell University - ILR School - The Triangle Factory Fire",
2019). What is all the more worrisome and shameful is that the situation is not much better
even a century post the ghastly lesson.
The workers in the warehouse of Amazon’s shipping and packing services in
Breinigsville, Pennsylvania are subjected to scathing heat. Employees regularly face
blackouts in the face of convection-oven like surroundings that render working conditions
inhuman and suffocating. In addition, the workers claim to be treated like dirt by the
management. Amazon, despite being fully aware of the blistering temperatures, chose to
install ambulances outside over improving work conditions (Richards, 2015).
The situation in developing countries is even more devastating. Incidents of workers
being killed by operational mishaps, especially in clothing factories, are glaringly large. In
2012, 112 workers lost their lives to a fire breakout in an apparel factory in Dhaka,
Bangladesh when managers chose to overlook fire alarms (Bajaj, 2012). In 2013, Rana Plaza
in Bangladesh’s Savar collapsed, killing as many as 1135 people. It resulted from the
building owners’ ignorance towards structural deficiencies (Reinecke & Donaghey, 2015).
Modern sweatshops continue to impose less than humane conditions on their workers.
The case of Bangladesh provides a painful insight to the same. The wage rate provided by
Triangle Factory in 1911, was 14 cents an hour. 4,500 clothing factories in Bangladesh
employing above 4 million people continued to grant a wage of 28 cents per hour in 2014,
which, adjusted for cost of living and inflation, is equivalent to one-tenth the amount that
garment factory workers earned a century ago (Taplin, 2014). Even in developed countries,

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The Unforgivable Fire at Triangle Factory: Was the Lesson Learnt?

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