Fannie Lansner, sister of columnist Jonathan Lansner’s paternal grandfather, was among 123 women and 23 men who died in what’s known as the Triangle Fire. It was a preventable tragedy at a ninth-floor garment factory in New York City. The fire sparked the American labor movement as well as modernized building safety codes.
Triangle Fire victim Fannie Lansner is honored on March 23, 2018 with a chalk memorial in front of the apartment building she lived in. (Courtesy: Lansner family)
FILE – This 1911 file photo shows the burned out remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. One hundred years ago, horrified onlookers watched as workers leapt to their deaths from the raging fire in the garment factory. The fire killed 146 workers, mainly young immigrant women and girls, and became a touchstone for the organized labor movement, spurred fire-safety laws and shed light on the lives of immigrant workers. (AP Photo/File)
These women, all survivors of tragic fire at Triangle Waist co., in New York City, March 25, 1911, attend ceremonies in New York March 25, 1961 on the 50th Anniversary of the event. About 350 persons escaped death in the fire that day which took the lives of 146 garment workers, mostly girls and women. From left at the commemorative ceremonies planned joint by New York City and the International ladies garment workers union are Anna Gullo Pidone, Yetta Kreisel, Josephine Nicolosi and Flo Coannides. (AP Photo)
FILE – In this 1911 file photo provided by the National Archives, labor union members gather to protest and mourn the loss of life in the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York. (AP Photo/National Archives, File)
FILE – In this March 25, 1911 file photo, firefighters work to put out the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. The fire that raced through a garment factory on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012 in Bangladesh and killed 112 workers bore eerie echoes of another inferno that burned more than a century ago: the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City. (AP Photo/File)
FDNY Ladder 20 raises its ladder to the sixth floor, the highest ladders at the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire could reach, during a commemoration of the 112th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at Greene St. and Washington Pl. Friday, March 24, 2023 in Manhattan, New York. The fire was on the Ninth floor. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
Damage is seen after the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire. (Courant file photo)
A wreath is pictured during a gathering for a commemoration of the 112th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at Greene St. and Washington Pl. Friday, March 24, 2023 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
Plaque honoring 146 workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory who died in a fire on March 25, 1911. Outrage over workers’ deaths was a key moment in establishing the U.S. labor movement. (Source: Lansner family)
Show Caption1 of 10Fannie Lansner, sister of columnist Jonathan Lansner’s paternal grandfather, was among 123 women and 23 men who died in what’s known as the Triangle Fire. It was a preventable tragedy at a ninth-floor garment factory in New York City. The fire sparked the American labor movement as well as modernized building safety codes.
ExpandOn March 25, 114 years ago, a New York City factory fire killed 146 workers. The dead included my Great Aunt Fannie Lansner.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire killed my paternal grandfather’s sister, a 21-year-old immigrant from Lithuania. A forewoman at the clothing factory, she died after helping coworkers escape, leaping out an eighth-floor window to escape flames and smoke overwhelming those unable to flee.
The legacy of Great Aunt Fannie and her 145 fellow victims is that their fiery deaths launched revolutions for American workplace safety, building codes and unions.
A century-plus later, I wonder what Great Aunt Fannie would think about today’s challenging job landscape, especially the nation’s labor movement.
Contemplate some high-profile union activity in recent years. For example, government jobs stats show 22 million workdays were lost to strikes in 2022-24. That sum equals the tally of the previous 17 years. Yet the recent sign of unity shown by these work stoppages couldn’t slow a long-running shrinkage of union membership.
My trusty spreadsheet, filled with numbers from UnionStats.com that track federal labor movement data, found 14.2 million union members in 2024, the second-lowest count in figures dating to 1973.
California is No. 1 for union members with 2.4 million, but that’s an 18-year low. Next comes New York at 1.7 million and Illinois at 734,800. California’s big economic rivals? Texas was No. 7 at 601,700, and Florida was No. 11 at 461,800.
The trend has clearly moved downward. Organized labor lost 321,000 members nationwide since 2019, the last year before the coronavirus upended the economy.
In 30 states, union membership shrank in these five years, with California having the biggest drop, off 124,800. Then came Washington state, off 89,900, and Florida, off 89,200.
Conversely, unions’ biggest wins of the pandemic era were in Texas, up 104,800, then Massachusetts, up 88,500, and Virginia, up 52,000.
Shrinking slices
These losses left unions with just 9.9% of all U.S. workers in 2024, the smallest slice on record.
However, union strength varies widely by state. Hawaii had the biggest union share at 27%, then New York at 21% and Alaska at 18%. California ranked No. 9 at 14%.
It was hardest to find union members in North Carolina at 2% of all workers, then South Dakota and South Carolina at 3%. Texas was No. 43 at 5%, and Florida was No. 39 at 5%.
Consider that union shares are largely shrinking – down in 28 states since 2019.
Nationally, unions’ slice of the workforce fell by 0.3 percentage points during the pandemic era. The biggest losses were in Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington state, off 2.9 percentage points. California’s 0.7-point dip was the 21st biggest loss. Florida’s 1.2-point slide was 16th largest.
Unions got their biggest gains in share in Hawaii, up 3.2 percentage points, Vermont, up 3.1, and Massachusetts, up 2.6. Texas’ share grew by a half-point, the 16th biggest increase.
Bottom line
The worker-boss battle is always in flux as the economy, political climates and social norms evolve.
The Triangle Fire, sadly, gave workers momentum. The pandemic briefly did the same.
What would Great Aunt Fannie say about another worker-control metric: how often people quit their jobs?
In 2022, during the pandemic’s economic unrest, a historically high 2.8% of Americans voluntarily left their job each month. Bosses fretted about how to keep their staffs from bolting.
Then the pendulum swung. That quit rate fell to 2.1% last year as bosses trimmed staffs and hiring. Workers became fearful of losing a steady paycheck.
Curiously, the frequency of telling the boss “goodbye” is not uniform across the nation – but quit rates dropped in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in two years.
In California, just 1.7% of workers quit last year, the fourth-lowest rate among the states. That’s down from the 2.4% quit rate of 2022.
Fewer quits were found only in Massachusetts (1.4% last year vs. 2.1% in 2022), New Jersey (1.6% last year vs. 2.3%), and New York (1.6% last year vs. 1.9%).
The most likely-to-quit Americans were Alaskan workers, with a 3.5% quit rate, down from 4.3% in 2022. Then came Montana (3% last year vs. 3.9%) and Wyoming (3% vs. 3.7%).
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]
California union membership (Graphic by Flourish) Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( California union membership hits 18-year low )
Also on site :
- 5 Surprising Signs of an Empath and Narcissist Relationship, According to a Psychologist
- Martial Arts Star Johnny Tri Nguyen To Headline Vietnamese Historical Epic ‘The Last Secret Of The First Emperor’
- US judge dismisses case against migrants caught in new military zone