Teaching
Women How to Fly
by Ed Werstein
-
On
December 14, 2010, more than 30 workers died and
100 were injured when they jumped from
upper floor windows
to escape a garment factory fire in Dhaka , Bangladesh .
Your
great-grandparents marched
for safety, "Bread
and roses!"
after the fire
forced the women to jump
from windows at the
Triangle shirt factory
inNew York City in 1911.
in
Your grandparents
fought and died
for safety,
"Bread and roses!"
at Flint in 1937.
Held the GM factory for weeks
Held the GM factory for weeks
to win their union.
Your parents
picketed
time and again
for safety,
"Bread and roses!"
to protect their unions
to protect their unions
in what has become
the Rust Belt.
And now women are
flying again
falling from factory
windows in Bangladesh
while you wait in
lines at Walmart
to buy the shirts
they were sewing
on the day before
they died,
died to make the
owners richer.
Owners whose
ancestors owned
shirt factories inNew York .
shirt factories in
Owners who now are
looking
for other women,
in even poorer
countries,
to teach them how to
fly.
~ first published in
the Blue Collar Review