Job Satisfaction: Traditional and modern study In the classic block buster movie from 1956, the legendary actor Charlton Heston playing the role of Moses’ declared to Pharaoh “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1, New International Version). This is a reenactment of the Old Testament account from the Book of Exodus, where Moses is referring the Jewish people that are being used as slave labor by the Egyptians to build the pyramids. Archeologists and historians estimate the story of Exodus originated between 1550 and 1000 BC. From a historic perspective, the story depicted from Exodus describes that of mass worker job dissatisfaction. Moses’ the leader of Jewish people may have been the first leaders in the worker rights movement. As …show more content…
Other worker grievances such as poor working conditions and long labor hours (10 to 12 hours per day), were the main concern of workers. Safe working conditions were a major concern of employees. It was a common practice of the time to lock down factories. This practice was to insure workers stayed at their work stations and to keep people from stealing. This practice landed in the front pages in 1911 as a result of a fire in New York City’s garment district at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Ross (2011) notes that, this was one of the most iconic yet tragic incidents in US history when 146 people lost their lives during the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Ross (2011) further expresses the cruelty and abuse that employees were subject to during this time period as workers tried desperately to escape the inferno only to find that the doors were locked in an effort to prevent employee theft. There was no doubt that, New Yorkers who witnessed women jumping out the windows of the building and landing on the hard sidewalks below, caused life-long trauma to those who observed this horrific event. The tragedy at Triangle Shirtwaste and the public outcry for safe working conditions resulted in government enacting work place safety laws. The
The article in NY Times deals with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire which happened in Lower Manhattan in 1911 and killed 145 workers, mainly immigrants who worked long hours and were trapped in the building when the disaster happened. The article depicts people who used to work long hours at the factory and who were looking forward to start their one day off before the fire changed their life. The article gives details about the tragic incident. It tells the reader that the flames were first seen on the 8th floor, that the workers were trying to fight the fire and that the fire spread so quickly that the within 30 minutes it devastated three floors of the building. The articles talks about the impact the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Death is what causes things to be changed whether it is for good or bad, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire death toll caused legislation to be enacted to ensure employee safety. This tragedy took the lives of 146 men and women and spurred an outcry for employee safety. Until this point there were very few regulation of employee safety, and this tragedy changed the scope of employee relations. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was a tragedy, court case and legislation starter.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was the deadliest in the history of the city for many reasons, some related to the workers, the owners, and even the help that was provided. One of the rules set for workers was that they were
For the first time, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire exposed the awful conditions of New York factories. Many changes took place such the creation of International Ladies ‘Garment Workers Union who held many strikes against the company. Their goal was to negotiate better wages and working conditions for the members of the
It’s a terrible thing, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.’” With the help of labor unions and very powerful strikes, the citizens of the United States couldn't allow it to go unnoticed. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was much more modern than the other factories around town, so it was greatly desired to work there. The environment was more modern and appealing for those who immigrated to the United States because it had big windows for natural light and higher ceilings to expose a bigger working space. The only disadvantage to working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was the fourteen-hour workday with just a small pay of $2 a day at most before the bosses would dock their pay from the resources they used that day. At the end of the day, they were technically held captive until the foreman’s inspected pocketbooks and bags at the exit. The employers made sure no one would steal from the shop because they could lose profit. According to the film, Max Blanck would keep late nights just to calculate how much he would lose if someone did walk out with one of his products or resources. This in turn caused many deaths during the fire because he decided the main exit, at Washington Place, be kept locked at all
The rise of big businesses such as The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a noticeable feature of the Gilded Age. David Von Drehle explains, “The garment industry had become quite large and began to mature, having doubled in size over the previous decade” One of the main factors in causing the fire were the terrible circumstances in factories during the Gilded Age at that time. Everyone during this time was all fighting for a better workplace and a better profit for their hard work. Drehle supports his argument in a way that describes the hardships of each individual and their background throughout the story. The fire illustrates how the safety precautions were very weak and also poorly thought out throughout this time period in history. It also describes how evil and selfish the big business owners were who treated their workers like slaves to strive for wealth. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck who were owners of the Triangle factory who demanded that their employees produce twice as many products. “It was the practice of “sweating” workers- that is, squeezing out more work for less
Nowadays, a fire extinguisher and a fire escape can be found in any kind of factory or company, but that was not the case with the event that occurred in the early 1900s in New York City. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a tragedy, which could have been avoided, and it was the event that caused a change in working conditions. Unfortunately, it took 146 lives before people would understand the concept of safety regulations. The working conditions back in the days were not like today in the 21st century where employees’ safety comes first; money was what the economy desperately needed the most. By the time women finally got their chance to shine, just a little, they took it without a second to waste.
On March 25, 1911 in the New York City’s West village 146 people mainly young women immigrants of Italian and Jewish background perished. The women, some just teenagers would work long hours in the factory sewing shirtwaist high necked cottons blouses which were the fashion staple of the time for young women. The owners of the Triangle Shirt waist factory would lock the doors while the women worked, said to prevent “theft” and the visit of union reps to the location. What lead to the fire was the unsanitary factory floor. This was the exact reason to why before the actual fire, 400 of the factories employees went on strike. During this strike the women fought for better wages and safer working conditions. Unfortunately they only won some of their concessions on pay, but little was actually done by the factories owner who continued to keep the workplace in shambles. As well as the doors still locked.
Even after the terrible tragedy happened, the new building the Triangle Waist Company used was not even fire proof and “the firm had already blocked the exit to the fire escape by two rows of sewing machines” (Argersinger, 105). The previous building where the fire had happened would only undergo a few repairs and re-open in the same condition it was in before the fire. This illustrates how the owners of the company did not care much about the safety of their factories, thus it comes as no surprise that the working conditions the shirtwaist makers had to endure were also terrible.
In the case study titled Walt Henderson, Walt Henderson works for a drafting company along side thirty other technicians that are supervised by two inspectors. Walt is demonstrating issues of a negative or unfavorable attitude at work. According to this class’s textbook “Attitudes are evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable – about objects, people, or events” (Robbins, and Judge 66). The study at hand, shows that Walt is a hard working individual that at times takes his work home to ensure projects are completed on time. In doing so, he finishes work quickly at the job and proceeds to work on personal matters in the office. Walt believes that because he completes his work early by using his personal off time that he has the right to work on personal matters in the work place. Doing personal work at the work place violates some of the rules of the work place and has been instructed to him by his supervision on the matter in the past. This paper will answer a few questions that are: What is Walt Henderson’s attitude toward work? What are the main components of Walt Henderson’s attitude toward work? If Walt Henderson becomes dissatisfied in his work, what is he likely to do about it: exit the organization, voice his dissatisfaction, remain loyal, or neglect his work? And lastly, what can Walt Henderson’s supervisor do to ensure Walt’s job satisfaction without endangering
A year after shirtwaist workers thought they had won a war, the Triangle Fire proved that it had merely been a battle. Under the Triangle Shirtwaist Company owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the men and women laboring to sew waist skirts were dissatisfied with their terrible working conditions and low wages. While working, the garment workers, made up of mostly poor Italian and Jewish women immigrants, would constantly be yelled at and called sexist slurs by bosses, and forced to work long, tiring hours for little pay (Argersinger 11). Tired of these conditions, the workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York met in secret to form a union against the company in September 1909 (Argersinger 11). The union of the garment workers
However, they still had to take their work home with them to complete the required amount of finished product to keep their job. They would be paid little compared to what the company sold the products for. However, in the novel, Triangle, they were forced to complete their products during their long work hours, seeing it as they were searched at the end of each work day for any fabric they might have taken with them, as that was seen as stealing, “... he passed a crowd of workers lined up at a thin wooden partition that screened the Greene Street exit from the main factory floor. The partition was designed in such a way that only one employee could pass through at a time. Workers were required to show their handbags to a night watchman as they left” (Drehle 119). This was one of the things that led to the fire being as disastrous as it was. Production workers were also subject to unfair things that the employers decided to do to the employees. In the Triangle fire, “a young man grabbed the [door]knob, twisted it, pulled it, pushed it- in vain. ‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘the door is locked! The door is locked!’” (Drehle 141). To make matters worse, not only were they treated bad during work hours, they had poor conditions “and where two toilets served three hundred workers, and one of the two were broken”and were shamed if they were not promptly on time. (Drehle 215). Despite all the bad and poor things happening around the workers, they still managed to make friend and to make each other happy as “[They] went into the dressing room to talk and laugh and make herself look
Around the 1910s, America was in a time of industrialization where there was the development of factory system and mass production, and the increasing growth rate population. While this transformation may have provided many benefits to Americans, it also carried negative results. For instance, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, located in Manhattan, New York City, managed by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, sold shirtwaists, an immensely popular necessity that every women desired to have in their closet. Since Blanck and Harris were known for operating the largest firm in business, they were notorious for taking advantage of the enormous amount of immigrants entering New York during the early twentieth century, and hiring them in a sweatshop that consisted of “poor ventilation, overcrowded working environment, and dangerous machinery.”(Lyons) In addition, “Not only did Blanck and Harris have a suspicious history of factory fires, they were also well known for anti-worker policies.”(Downey) On March 25, 1911, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory employees were in jeopardy when the building had caught on fire. During the incident, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, however, only one of the elevators was working and it could only hold twelve people at a time. There were also two stairways but one was locked from the outside to prevent theft or employees ditching work. While Harris and Blanck received warning and escaped the building, the workers continued
Furthermore, make minimum safety standards. Improving health and safety conditions would cause a greater good than harm. In 1988, after nationwide survey by more than one hundred state and federal officials, The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) identified the garment, restaurant, and meat-processing industries as those most frequently considered sweatshop industries. These three have the most widespread problems, committing multiple violations of labor laws and safety regulations (Foo 2180). For example, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911. Their conditions were horrible. Women stitching up clothes with over forty one workers, 125 of them women and children who were mostly immigrants. Being burned to death most jumped out windows in the building. This terrible tragedy was the first out of many accidents. There should have enforcement of laws to ensure that these incidents are not repeated again (Rosen 1). Also, if they are
Job satisfaction can be known to some people as an important element in their lives. If an individual is unhappy with their occupation it may affect other parts of their life. Job satisfaction can be seen in what one wants in a job as to what one has in their current job.