Contract faculty joined over 200 community members for a Wednesday memorial outside NYU’s Brown Building, where 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire that paved the way for expanded labor protections nationwide. 

The annual memorial  — organized by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, NYU, the New York City Fire Department and several labor organizations— marked the fire’s 115th anniversary. Commencing at 11:30 a.m., the event featured speeches by NYU faculty, local politicians and activists. Organizers also raised a ceremonial FDNY ladder and displayed 146 flowers to honor the garment workers, many of whom were immigrant women, who died inside the building while working at a blouse factory. 

“These young women who are martyrs and died so tragically are the beginning of the labor movement as we know it — it’s because of their unfortunate and terrible situations that we were able to begin to have a real labor movement in this country,” LS professor Carley Moore, who was on the bargaining committee for the union Contract Faculty United, told WSN. “To be part of the contract faculty union and to have an agreement with the university today is also very historic.”

LS professor and CFU member Emily Bauman gave a speech at the memorial, emphasizing the continuous need for organized labor and celebrating the union for reaching a tentative agreement with NYU just hours prior. Julie Su, the city’s deputy mayor for economic justice, highlighted the importance of labor unions, safe working conditions and financial security for immigrants, women and the working class. 

State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon and Brendan Griffith, the president of the city’s Central Labor Council, also joined the crowd on campus and gave speeches to the crowd. Other organizers read poems, sang songs and performed reenactments of fire victims’ stories. 

“It’s really important for NYU students to know that this tragic event is also a pivotal event in U.S. labor history and in developing worker protections,” CAS professor Ger O’Donoghue said in an interview with WSN. “I hope that this is a good learning opportunity for students who are not very familiar with labor politics to see that when you organize with your colleagues, you can win things that are impossible to win as individuals.”

Brishti Sarkar contributed reporting.

Contact Leena Ahmed at [email protected].