tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11661403.post113638337474855032..comments2023-09-12T03:15:26.264-05:00Comments on The Green Flame: So We DO need a Federal GovernmentLynn Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14758458143823510696noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11661403.post-1136644947114079702006-01-07T08:42:00.000-06:002006-01-07T08:42:00.000-06:00The logical extension of your argument is that we ...The logical extension of your argument is that we should not have any workplace safety rules since they add to the cost of business. So why not just go back to the sweatshops of the 19th Century. Sure you have an occasional "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire", but that's the cost of doing business and the girls working there didn't have to work there. They could have just let their families starve.<BR/><BR/>For those of you without not knowledge of labor history, and I suspect your numbers of legion. Here is what happened on that day in New York at the turn of the last century.<BR/><BR/>[T]he Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. . . [was] located 8 blocks south of Union Square. On Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, about five hundred employees were at work making shirtwaists--the high-necked blouses worn by working women of the day. At 4:30 pm there was a muffled explosion. Smoke poured out of eighth-floor windows. Within minutes flames ranged out of control; girls jumped to certain death from windows high above the street; locked exits and a fire escape that buckled under the weight of fleeing workers blocked escape. The fire lasted only eighteen minutes, and killed 146 workers, most of them Jewish and Italian teenaged girls. <BR/><BR/>So do we go back to the "good old days" when government was hands off in the affairs of business, or do we recognize that all workers have a right to as safe a work place as we can produce. You have to decide.Lynn Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14758458143823510696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11661403.post-1136479595511532902006-01-05T10:46:00.000-06:002006-01-05T10:46:00.000-06:00I can't dispute your call for union involvement. I...I can't dispute your call for union involvement. In fact, before unions gained strength in the coal fields, safety records were much worse. <BR/><BR/>Federal safety guidelines are needed. They must be stronger and they must be enforced.<BR/><BR/>We don't know the evidence concerning local officials. We shall see what the investigation reveals. I am simply speaking from past experience here.Lynn Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14758458143823510696noreply@blogger.com