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Triangle Shirtwaiste Factory

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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
The American labor force was vastly different in the 1900s than it is now. The industrial revolution opened up thousands of jobs in an industry that had never existed before. Due to the infancy of these jobs it was a generally unregulated market by the government. There were essentially no laws protecting laborers at work, no minimum wage, and no child labor laws. Employment at will was the dogma for employee-employer relationships and this inherently favored the employer in all aspects. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was one of the largest garment producers in New York City at the time. The garment industry primarily was made up of women and children. This group had never traditionally worked before because labor male driven. This allowed for employers to take advantage of women and children with maximum hours for minimal wages in unsafe working conditions without any repercussions. Unions were despised by business owners and they would hire scabs to fill in for any workers who went on strike against the company. The police and elected officials were benefactors of the titans of industry so they did not see any need to help the workers in the garment industry until a tragic fire. The specific conditions of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the equipment contributed to the large loss of life in the fire. There were no laws mandating that the owners provided its employees with fire exits or adequate machinery. First, equipping all of the workers with new sewing machines and other important machines for manufacturing garments cuts into the bottom line of the two owners so the women were working with overused machinery. They also had over a thousand machines in use at once in one ten story factory building and hundreds being used on one floor. This makes it difficult for the building to provide all of those machines

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