Within the past year, New York City became my home. Today, it seems especially right to be here . . . working . . . on these few days that are sandwiched between two events that have special significance to the people who live and work in the nation’s largest city.

 

Monday was, of course, Labor Day, and while many New Yorkers took the day to enjoy the last rays of the summer’s sun, a few of us wandered down to Greenwich Village. We stood on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place and honored the lives of a group of garment workers who perished there 99 years ago in what was one of the largest industrial disasters in the history of New York City. On March 25, 1911, 146 employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory—mostly immigrants, mostly teenagers and young women—died from a fire that blazed through the factory in a matter of minutes. Among the fatalities, 62 workers died when they jumped from the ten-story building in an effort to escape the flames. An investigation that followed concluded that factory managers had locked one set doors that would have allowed many of the workers to escape. 

 

The Shirtwaist Factory Fire horrified the nation. New Yorkers, including Frances Perkins—who would later become the first female Secretary of Labor—vowed that the young lives would not be lost in vain. In the years that immediately followed, Perkins worked closely with then New York Governor Al Smith to enact a series of reforms that made workplaces safer for all employees. The American labor movement truly rose from the ashes of that fire.

 

Before the week ends, New Yorkers will remember another event that took place within the city a mere nine years ago. On a brilliant autumn morning, two airplanes slammed into the twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Center. (Another flew into the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C. and a fourth plowed into a farm field in Shanksville, PA.) Nearly 3000 people perished that day—victims came from 90 different countries and represented all major faiths. 

 

These two events, separated by nearly one hundred years, share one factor in common: In both cases, the vast majority of people who died were good and decent people who had done nothing more than show-up for work on a particular day. What had been their primary goal?  In most cases, the workers simply wanted to create a better life for themselves and their families. 

 

For those of us fortunate to remain employed today, use this week to honor the workers who have gone before us and commit to making your workplace a good and honorable one.