Triangle Returns: Young Women Continue to Die Locked in Sweatshops
Thank you to Eric Dolan at Raw Story for bringing attention to this. 100 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire which I wrote about here, we're still seeing these abusive conditions in sweatshops around the world. We got rid of them here and just outsourced our slavery so we didn't have to look at it.
Young women continue to die locked in sweatshops, labor group warns:
As the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire approaches, the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights urged the United States to pass legislation to prevent multi-national corporations from violating internationally recognized worker rights standards, such as no child or forced labor, decent working conditions, freedom of association and the right to organize a union.
The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire resulted in the death of 146 female workers, who were locked inside the factory by their managers, on March 25, 1911. The women worked 6 days a week, often 14 hours shifts, and earned the meager wage of 14 cents an hour. (The equivalent of $3.18 an hour in 2011, adjusted for inflation.)
After the death of workers in a Bangladesh sweatshop, the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights said now was the time to hold corporations accountable to respect labor laws and pass the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act.
The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators in 2007, but never made it out of House and Senate committees. The bill would have prohibited the import, export, and sale of goods made with sweatshop labor.
More there on how we failed to get any legislation through the Congress here in the US to put a stop to this, so go read the rest of the article. And as he referred to in his article, here's more from the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights.
Triangle Returns: Young Women Continue to Die Locked in Sweatshops:
Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights Releases Explosive New Video and Report for the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Triangle Returns on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noL8nFSzsDc
Triangle Returns - broadcast quality: http://www3.usw.org/download/triangle_race_to_the_bottom_r2.mov
Report: Triangle Returns: Young Women Continue to Die Locked in Sweatshops: http://www.nlcnet.org/admin/reports/files/Triangle-Returns.pdf
Supplemental footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJG_o94mWqA
