1. Labor’s Response to Industrialism
US History

2. Business Ethics (Agree or Disagree)
The object of business is to make as much money as possible.
Anything that is legal in business is OK.
It’s ok to pay workers less than they deserve if they are willing to take it.
If a business is smart enough to drive its competition out of business then they deserve what they get.
It is the job of the government to watch what businesses are doing.

3. Triangle ShirtWaist Fire
Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died. The survivors were left to live and relive those agonizing moments. The victims and their families, the people passing by who witnessed the desperate leaps from ninth floor windows, and the City of New York would never be the same.

4. Triangle Shirtwaist
Company

5. The Fire
Workers recounted their helpless efforts to open the ninth floor doors to the Washington Place stairs. They and many others afterwards believed they were deliberately locked-- owners had frequently locked the exit doors in the past, claiming that workers stole materials. For all practical purposes, the ninth floor fire escape in the Asch Building led nowhere, certainly not to safety, and it bent under the weight of the factory workers trying to escape the inferno. Others waited at the windows for the rescue workers only to discover that the firefighters' ladders were several stories too short and the water from the hoses could not reach the top floors. Many chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive.

8. Results of the Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 would change the regulation by government of business.
Before the fire government had mostly stayed away from business feeling it had no power to legislate it.
After the fire government could not avoid creating laws to protect the workers.
Once the New York legislature enacted safety laws, other states in the US followed suit.
Workers also began to look toward unions to voice their concerns over safety and pay.

9. Labor vs. Management Working conditions Unions Business actions
Long hours, low pay, no benefits, hazardous and unhealthy work environments
Women & children exploited
Lower wages
Age 5 +
Unions
Who?
By craft, combinations, by industry, etc.
Actions
Strikes
Business actions
Scabs, spies, security forces, government help, legal limitations

10. Unit 2 Review Positives/Negatives of western settlement
Reasons for industrialization
Pros/Cons of Industrialism
Laissez-faire
Americanization / assimilation
Corporations / monopolies
Worker issues
Goals, methods, and difficulties of labor unions
Immigration
Reasons for
Pull and push factors
Pull = opportunities
Push = problems