Osiyo, and greetings readers, Today’s round of The Yona History Rhymes features the ten state Tornado outbreak of December the 10th and 11th of 2021 and historical antecedents, including the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Featuring the “poem to ponder” for the week, -Verbs- “We are.”
Osiyo, and greetings readers, Today’s round of The Yona History Rhymes features the ten state Tornado outbreak of December the 10th and 11th of 2021 and historical antecedents, including the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Featuring the “poem to ponder” for the week, -Verbs- “We are.”
First with the antecedents….
From Osha.gov: -“…March 25, (1911): – fire spread through the cramped Triangle Waist Company garment factory on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building in lower Manhattan. Workers in the factory, many of whom were young women recently arrived from Europe, had little time or opportunity to escape. The rapidly spreading fire killed 146 workers.
The building had only one fire escape, which collapsed during the rescue effort. Long tables and bulky machines trapped many of the victims. Panicked workers were crushed as they struggled with doors that were locked by managers to prevent theft, or doors that opened the wrong way. Only a few buckets of water were on hand to douse the flames. Outside, firefighters’ ladders were too short to reach the top floors and ineffective safety nets ripped like paper.
The catastrophe sent shockwaves through the city, beginning in the communities of immigrant workers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where families struggled to identify their lost in makeshift morgues. Family grief turned to citizen anger as the causes of the fire – including the abhorrent working conditions at the time – were exposed.
The public outcry over what was clearly a preventable tragedy brought a renewed sense of urgency to the labor movement.
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From Reuters 12/1/2013: – At least seven people died and three were injured when a Chinese-owned clothing factory in an industrial zone in the Italian town of Prato burned down on Sunday, killing workers trapped in an improvised dormitory built onsite. Local media said 11 workers had been accommodated in a warren of small cardboard sleeping compartments above a warehouse in the Macrolotto industrial district of the town, known for its large number of garment factories. By James Mackenzie, ROME.
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Second with the recents….
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From NYmag, Intelligencer 12/13/2021: -“People had questioned if they could leave or go home,” McKayla Emery, a 21-year-old shift worker, told NBC News from her hospital bed, where she was recovering from injuries sustained during the disaster. The requests to leave began shortly after tornado sirens started blaring outside the factory around 5:30 p.m. “If you leave, you’re more than likely to be fired,” she said of a manager’s conversation with four co-workers who wanted to get out. “I heard that with my own ears.” As the sirens began, workers sheltered in bathrooms and hallways, but once they believed the tornado watch was over, all the staff was reportedly sent back to work to meet the high demand for Christmas. But the gifts made on Friday never made it to the shelves, being flattened along with the building by a twister.
In Edwardsville, Illinois, a tornado from the same storm front collapsed an Amazon warehouse, killing at least six people. Amazon has a no-phones policy on its warehouse floors, but employees told Reuters they received emergency alerts on their cell phones from local authorities and sheltered in place.
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From The Hill.com, 12/16/2021: – A lawsuit filed on Wednesday alleges that a candle company in Kentucky demonstrated “flagrant indifference” during last week’s devastating tornadoes.
After eight workers were killed, surviving employees of Mayfield Consumer Products said in their lawsuit that the company violated occupational safety and health workplace standards by not permitting employees to leave work early as the storm approached, according to The Associated Press.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that the company had “up to three and half hours before the tornado hit its place of business to allow its employees to leave its worksite as safety precautions,” but instead showed “flagrant indifference to the rights” of employees who were at risk, the AP reported.
“This is one of those speaks-for-itself cases,” Amos Jones, an attorney representing the employees, told The Hill, adding that “the lawsuit is very straightforward.”
“Our investigation is indicating from what people who were trapped saw that the toll from that site is bound to be greater than eight,” he added, noting that “a large number of people” who may have been working on-site but were technically employed by another company “could plausibly not be counted in an MCP death toll.”
“We’re still investigating, and we will continue investigating as people come forward and give us more and more information,” Jones added.
A spokesperson for the company, Bob Ferguson, previously said that employees were free to go home anytime and said they would not have faced consequences for doing so, and CEO Troy Propes said that “an independent expert team” was reviewing the actions that managers and employees took during the storm, per the AP.
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Third, Now with the Yona Rhymes…
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From Greenwich village to Tornado pillage, all candles to the winds,
Workers at Mayfield Consumer Products must fill in those bins.
Gotham shirtwaist corsets, burning there so brightly evermore,
In New Amsterdam air, ‘tween East River and North River shore.
Aflame above the seventh floor, padlocked chains upon the door.
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From Greenwich village to Tornado pillage, all sheets to the wind,
Florentine warehouse scene, slaves sewing the fashionable trend.
Teresa Moda catwalk, “Sorrow has no Color”, seven victims more.
Tuscan shame, what claim to fame, immigrants at opposite shore.
No escape, what horrid fate ,when bars are blocking the only door.
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Screaming Sirens, weather alerts, blinding rains, and howling winds.
Denied pleas to the manager, and no one leaves, ’til the roof bends.
Worker’s pride must subside, despite family at home in a single wide.
“If we leave now, we’re fired for sure.” the next morning sun sighed,
Cue the aerial F-5 drone tour, there wasn’t anywhere to run or hide.
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-The compliant corpse is just as employed as the fired non-compliant,
save your own life before you save the job that kills you.-
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Fourth with the Poem to Ponder….
-Verbs- “We are.” by Faris Grey Bear
2/14/2015, Raceland, Kentucky, USA
breathing, blinking, feeling, thinking.
pausing, reflecting, remembering, thanking.
we met, we moved, we survived, we are.
working, eating, sleeping, losing.
missing, aging, hurting, bruising.
we mend, we make up, we survive, we are.
reaching, touching, hugging, glowing.
seeing, smelling, holding, knowing.
we meet, we melt, we surrender, we are.
such priceless treasure, tender and fond,
love beyond measure, infinity and beyond.
we were, we are, we will be, you and me.
-dedicated to my better half. -yona-
