Bread and roses 2000

Anti-sweatshop protesters demonstrated in New York's Greenwich Village March 4 to commemorate the death of 146 women garment workers who died in a ghastly fire March 25, 1911.

The women were employees of the Triangle Shirt Waist Company. When bolts of cloth suddenly caught fire the young women rushed to escape, only to find the fire exits had been locked by their employer to "keep labor agitators out."

To escape the flames, the young women, some holding hands, stepped off the window sills and fell to their death many stories below.

Ever since day, International Women's Day, March 8, has been linked indelibly with the Triangle fire. Actually, three years earlier Clara Zetkin proposed International Women's Day at a women's conference in Copenhagen as a way to honor a big rally on Manhattan's Lower East Side to demand women's suffrage and a strong union in the needle trades.

The 2000 demonstration underscores what a long way we've come a long way since 1911 in the struggle for women's equality, but we still have a long way to go. Women still earn only 76.5 cents - because of racism African-American women, 63 cents and Hispanic women, 54 cents - for every dollar earned by men.

Discrimination against women still persists. Frederick Engels, collaborator with Karl Marx, argued women's oppression would exist as long as there is private property.

Women are still underrepresented in the nation's legislatures. The "right to choose" still faces undemocratic attacks. Anti-women violence is a major issue.

Women themselves are spearheading the struggle to close the wage gap, joining unions, running for political office and leading mass movements. But men, too, must embrace this struggle. Women are an important part of labor and democratic sturggles and will play an important role in this year's election.

The labor anthem puts it well: "Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses, too."