Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I am of a generation that was actually taught the history of labor unions and the labor movement in high school.....they don't teach it anymore. I learned about the Triangle murders in high school. It's always puzzled me that folks are always talking about when mothers did not work outside the home. That little fairy tale has never been true. It was all women in that fire.

I have never been a big fan of a standing labor union and vehemently disagree with some of it's tactics to this day. I DO absolutely without reservation support the right to collective bargaining.

Funny thing is now happening based on how 'The Captains and the Kings' are behaving. Right now, today, we do need standing labor unions..........we need that voice representing labor organized and fighting. Those carpetbagging asshats have pushed me into supporting standing labor unions.

I, too went to school when the US labor union movement was taught- and labor unions were respected. Also, I attended public school in California prior to Proposition 13- you know, when it ranked in the top 10!

Also, being from an immigrant working class- actually "labor" (as in picking up garbage in gunny sacks, digging ditches as an unskilled worker) background, my Pop was involved in the early labor movement and talked of it often. There were quite a few child laborers in my family that worked in fields and factories during the early 20th Century- and this included my mother and Aunts. Many in my family work with their hands and backs today.

Large corporations have a lot to gain in busting unions- their bottom-line for shareholders.

The moves to strip public employees of collective bargaining all over the US at this time to me, is a step closer to taking down all unions which is a neo-con's wet dream.

Leaving out the historical basis for forming labor unions in US public education is part and parcel of the goal of union busting throughout the country that based upon tenets of aristocracy. It is as much about social standing and keeping people "in their place" as it is about profits or state and local budgets.