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Arts & Entertainment
Event highlights of the week!
SportsWise
The SportsWise team looks at the 1901 United Center project and what it will mean to the surrounding neighborhood in terms of hotel rooms, parking, an entertainment venue – and affordable housing.
Cover Story
The newly opened National Public Housing Museum in Chicago is the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States. Its mission is not only to tell stories about people in this housing, but to preserve, promote and propel the right of all people to a place where they can live and prosper – a place to call home.
From the Streets
On Workplace Safety Day especially, the International Labour Organization notes that the United States has different concerns than a century ago, writes columnist Dr. Victor Devinatz.
The Playground
ON THE COVER: The National Public Housing Museum (Barry Brecheisen photo). THIS PAGE: An ashtray full of CTA transfers sits on a table of the recreated apartment of the Civil Rights-era Hatch family in the new National Public Housing Museum (Suzanne Hanney photo). DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of StreetWise.
Dave Hamilton, Creative Director/Publisher dhamilton@streetwise.org
Amanda Jones, Director of programs ajones@streetwise.org
Julie Youngquist, Executive director jyoungquist@streetwise.org
Ph: 773-334-6600
Office: 2009 S. State St., Chicago, IL, 60616
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
Compiled by Dave Hamilton & Suzanne Hanney
Queer Histories!
‘The First Homosexual: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869 - 1939’ Featuring 125 artists, “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939,” a major international loan exhibition, is on display from May 2 - July 26 at Wrightwood 659, 659 W. Wrightwood Ave. The exhibition features more than 300 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, photographs, and films, many presented for the first time within the context of global queer and colonial inquiry. These range from well-known masterpieces to unexpected works by little-known or anonymous artists. Drawn from over 100 museums and private collections around the world, the exhibition takes as its starting point the year 1869—when the term “homosexual” is first coined and proceeds through the subsequent seven decades, amplified by a selection of earlier art, as context. Fridays noon - 7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Thursdays in June only, noon - 7 p.m. Admission is $15 at tickets.wrightwood659.org/events only, walk-ups not permitted.
Art in the Wild!
In partnership with the Elmhurst Park District, the Elmhurst Art Museum presents the return of Art in Wilder Park. One of the first outdoor festivals of the season, Art in Wilder Park features over 130 exhibitors including local artists, food vendors, a designated kids court for family activities, and more. The FREE event annually attracts over 8,000 people to the museum campus and takes place May 3-4, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 175 S. Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst. The highly-anticipated juried festival features a variety of artisans selling one-of-a-kind jewelry, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints, fiber arts, and treats from local food vendors. The festival offers fun for the family with engaging activities and creative art projects made in collaboration with partner organizations.
‘IN/WITHIN, An Evening with South Chicago Dance Theatre’
South Side Moves!
The Auditorium, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, welcomes back the eclectic energy of hometown favorite South Chicago DanceTheatre (SCDT) with ‘IN/WITHIN,’ a mixed repertory program in one performance only Saturday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. In addition to debuting two World Premieres –“IN/WITHIN,” a wildly theatrical one-act production choreographed by SCDT Founder & Director of Vision and Strategy Kia S. Smith, and “FOLK,” by New York-based Guggenheim Awardwinning choreographer Kate Weare – the veteran choreographer and former longtime Artistic Director of River North Dance Company, Frank Chaves, will be honored with SCDT’s 5th Cultural Hero Award. Tickets start at $39 and are available at auditoriumtheatre.org
Facing the Climate!
‘Time is a Color and the Color is Blue’
Avalanche Theatre makes its production debut with the world premiere of “Time is a Color and the Color is Blue,” a survival drama exploring climate change, grief, forgiveness and letting go—all within a theater transformed into an ice cave. A glaciologist, Whittaker, is snowed into an ice cave while searching for the oldest known cave paintings. As her team waits out the storm in their lab, her mind begins to spiral, memories and guilt melding and folding in on each other just like pressurized ice thousands of feet below the surface. Trapped and losing oxygen fast, Whittaker must confront how she can ask forgiveness from the Earth, from the ice cave, from loved ones she's hurt, and from herself. But how can you ask forgiveness of a thing that melts when you hold it? Playing May 1 - 24 at Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark St. Tickets start at $15 at avalanchetheatre.com/time-is-a-color
Art in Wilder Park
Now Visible!
‘Invisible to Whom?’ Selections from the Robert A. Sengstacke Archive “Invisible to Whom?” challenges the notion of Black “invisibility,” embracing the power of self-representation. Celebrating photographer and editor Robert A. “Bobby” Sengstacke’s decades-long work documenting Chicago’s Black community, this exhibition of 10 images highlights his deep compassion and commitment to authentic storytelling. Through his lens, we witness Black people seeing and affirming one another, reclaiming their narratives beyond the white gaze and reimagining visibility in a racially stratified world. On display at the Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St., through June 30. FREE.
La Mancha Re-invisioned!
‘Man of La Mancha’
Inspired by Miguel Cervantes’ 17th century masterwork, the 1965 “Man of La Mancha” won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Originally set as a play-within-a play in a Spanish prison while Cervantes is awaiting trial during the Inquisition, this version by Goodman Theatre Artistic Associate and Northwestern University Theatre Department Chair Henry Godinez takes place in an ICE facility on the U.S.-Mexico border. Recommended for ages 13+ and running through May 5 at the Ethel M. Barber Theater, 30 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston. Tickets $27-$30 at wirtz.northwestern.edu or 847.491.7282.
‘Art’
Musical Lunch Break!
Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts
Classical Music Chicago presents the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The free weekly concert series features extraordinary music by artists who are early in their careers. Enjoy classical concerts in-person at 12:15 p.m. at the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, 55 E. Wacker. Face masks are optional. You may also stream from the comfort of your own home at classicalmusicchicago.org or listen on WFMT. On April 30, enjoy pianist Dmytro Choni (pictured). FREE.
Bad Bunny on the Rebound!
Imagine U: 'A Tale of Peter Rabbit’ Award-winning writer Trista Baldwin gives Beatrix Potter’s timeless tale a modern twist in “A Tale of Peter Rabbit,” directed by Tor Campbell. If everyone thinks you’re a bad bunny, can you ever be good? In this Imagine U performance for ages 3-6, Peter and his three sisters come together to tell a story of their very own. Approximate run time 50 minutes, no intermission, Playing through May 11 at Northwestern University’s Mussetter-Struble Theater, 1949 Campus Drive, Evanston. Creative Drama Workshops follow the May 3 matinee. Tickets $12-$20 and info at https://wirtz.northwestern.edu/imagine-u-peter-rabbit/
Laughter & Introspection!
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company presents ‘Art,’ May 1 – June 1, at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. ‘Art’ examines the quirky dynamics of friendship and the enigmatic world of art through Yasmina Reza’s sharp wit and clever dialogue. This hilarious and thought-provoking comedy navigates the fine line between laughter and introspection, exploring the true value of both art and friendship. Tickets start at $15 at remybumppo.org/show/art
Dance + Fashion + Art!
‘Sightline’ – The Seldoms with Fraser Taylor Chicago dance company The Seldoms collaborate with Fraser Taylor on “Sightline,” an evening-length work combining dance, visual art, and fashion design. In “Sightline,” figures skirt and flee in and out of view, drawing attention to how we see one another in our worlds. The Seldoms' ensemble of six extraordinary dancers move in and around Taylor's set—twelve column-like vertical textiles—creating situations of concealment, distance, and surprise. The dancers wear boldly geometric, black and white garments from Taylor's HAXTON line. May 1 - 3 at 7:30 p.m. & May 4 at 2 p.m. at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn St. Tickets start at $30 at theseldoms.org
The United Center Project
John: The Chicago City Council approved the 1901 United Center Project on February 19. Construction is supposed to start this spring on the first phase, which is expected to be completed by 2028, with the sixth and final phase in 2040. They will spend $7 billion on Chicago’s West Side. Michael Reinsdorf, who is president and CEO of the Chicago Bulls and Danny Wirtz, who is Chicago Blackhawks chairman and CEO, want to build 233 hotel rooms, affordable housing and parking in the first phase; 1,309 hotel keys and 9,463 residential units by 2040, according to the SunTimes.
One critic of the parking is Ald. Anthony Beale (9th ward), who said at the Zoning Committee he didn’t know if you’d have enough in two structures for the first phase.
Russell: The 1901 Project, a multiphase development with commercial office space, hotels, retail and entertainment. The neighborhood will be activated year-round to live, work, play. To build the United Center, they tore old buildings down. I stayed in the West Side. We had stores, restaurants. Now it’s a ghost town. When they get done, it’s going to be money.
William: I have been sick and tired. Anything for poor
people gets taken away to be Starbucks, luxury housing, for people with money. Let’s at least have a few things you can take your family to after the game, make an afternoon of it with the kids and spouses.
Allen: I agree, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. They do have something in there for the poor. The 55 acres they are talking about transforming, they are going to have a 6,000-seat music venue, retail, hotels, 25 acres of parks AND up to 20% affordable housing. I am with that affordable housing because that is very important for the Black community, in any area of Chicago.
William: I will believe that when I see it.
Allen: They are spending $7 billion, so they gotta throw in something for the poor and I am grateful for that affordable housing.
John: I like that they are going to have affordable housing, because it’s not far from downtown. You just take the Green Line from the station the CTA just opened at Damen, a good move by the CTA. They need a Green Line station at Western, but we’ll save that for another day. The job opportunities -32,000 construction jobs and 7,000 operational jobs, 30% minority and 8% womenowned -- if it comes to fruition, will be great.
Russell: It’s going to transform the neighborhood, make it better. Like Wrigley Field, go from restaurant to restaurant. Remember when me, John, Donald Morris and [Editor] Suzanne [Hanney] went to the game, came out and had tacos, ice cream? Bring some jobs to the West Side. People need to work, bring this neighborhood back like in the 70s and 80s, the old Bulls stadium.
William: I agree with Russ on that. Make a night of it, or a day of it, like the Cubs fans do.
Allen: This is a development between the Reinsdorf and the Wirtz families. Danny Wirtz, the CEO of the Blackhawks stated, “our commitment is to create a space that empowers all generations, enhances the culture and economic fabric of the west Side.” I am going to hold him to that.
John: I agree with Russell that Wrigley Field is a blast. Seeing the women out there, the tourists out there. I hope this is a combination of both, unlike Sox Park. If you’re not going to see the Yankees or the Red Sox, or the fireworks, you might as well stay home.
Any comments, suggestions or topic ideas for the SportsWise team? Email StreetWise Editor Suzanne Hanney at suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com
Vendors (clockwise) Russell Adams, A. Allen, William Plowman and John Hagan chat about the world of sports.
THE NATIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING
by Suzanne Hanney
“I see one-third of a nation ill clad, ill nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1937, quoted at National Public Housing Museum
Mollie Levin Turovitz was born in the Russian Empire in 1893 and came to the U.S. with her parents as a teenager. After she married, she lived on the South Side with her family until the Great Depression, when she was ecstatic to move into the brand-new Jane Addams Homes in 1938 – because it meant a kosher-ready kitchen where no one had ever cooked pork or shellfish.
Until the family moved to Lawndale in 1941 to be closer to their synagogue, Mollie’s son Jack had a photography business, with a tiny darkroom in his closet. During WWII, he was a bombardier, “because he was passionate about saving his people from the Nazis,” said his daughter Tina Turovitz Birnbaum. Afterward, he and his wife Shirley moved to California, where he was a pedestrian fatally hit by a car. Tina and her mother then moved back to Chicago, where they lived with Mollie and her husband – “bubbie and zayde” – in North Lawndale.
Bubbie’s kitchen became Tina’s place of refuge. She would kneel on a chair as Mollie asked if dishes needed more sugar or salt. Tina modeled her own kitchen after Mollie’s “because that’s what made me feel safe” and after Mollie’s death, Tina gratefully received Mollie’s grinder for whitefish and the pot in which she cooked gefilte fish from her aunt, Mollie’s daughter.
More recently, Tina’s cousin Jack was an affordable housing developer who ran into someone who asked if he knew anyone who had lived in public housing. As a result, Tina donated the fish pot and grinder that sit in the family’s recreated 1938 kitchen at the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM), which opened the weekend of April 4 in the last remaining building of the former Jane Addams Homes.
The only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States, NPHM has a mission to preserve, promote and propel the right of all people to a place where they can live and prosper – a place to call home. As a member of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, NPHM is one of 370 venues in 65 nations committed to telling difficult and complicated stories, preserving history and imagining a more just future.
Why a national museum in Chicago
NPHM’s roots in Chicago date to 2002, when the Jane Addams Homes closed as part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) Plan for Transformation to rehab or replace all of Chicago’s public housing. One of the original voices behind NPHM was Deverra Beverly, president of the resident council at the CHA’s ABLA (Addams/Brooks/ Loomis/Abbott) Homes on the Near West Side and a CHA commissioner.
Current board chair Sunny Fischer became involved in 2006 when Beverly
came to her as someone who ran a foundation. Fischer was executive director of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for 21 years. She was also chair of both the Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and a co-founder of the Chicago Foundation for Women. Civic leaders, historic preservationists, cultural artists and public housing residents incorporated the museum the next year.
In November 2018, the CHA granted the NPHM a 99-year land lease for $1, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) deeded the three-story brick building, the last of the Jane Addams Homes, to the Museum.
Beverly and other residents wanted to memorialize the ABLA Homes. Together with Fischer, they decided to make NPHM a national museum, so they could tell everyone’s story, Fischer said.
HOUSING MUSEUM IS NOW OPEN
“I grew up in the Bronx in public housing. A lot of us have those kinds of stories,” she said.
“My experience in public housing when we first moved in was very, very positive. It was a very decent place to live, healthy and light. I went to school in the projects. I had a librarian who really took care of my intellectual growth. There were fabulous playgrounds. In the Bronx, there was an integrated group of families. It really shaped the way my life began. I lived there 10 or 11 years. It was a symbol to me my government wanted us to make it. My family needed help at that time and we got it. They invested in us and it paid off. When public housing is invested in and when the government says. ‘People need housing, we have to take care of our citizens’, it’s better for everyone. That’s why we needed a public housing museum, to confront the stereotypes. People hear public housing, or public health, public schools, they have a negative response to it.
“But if that’s the case, millions of people are being neglected. We have to be determined to make ‘public’ a good word, not break that social contract that citizens should have with their government.”
A place to evoke ‘home’ – and discuss policy
The NPHM conveys these feelings of safety, community – and pride – in its dual roles as a house museum and as a place to discuss housing policy.
Upstairs from the Turovitz apartment, for example, is the recreated unit of the African American Hatch family from the 1960s Civil Rights era. Helen Holmes Jackson and her husband, the Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr., refused to buy a television for her family, “because she wanted them to read the Great Books, not watch Bonanza,” according to family member Rhoda Hatch. But when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved to nearby Lawndale in 1966 for his Northern fair housing campaign, Mother Jackson bought the TV and coverage of him became the only thing the family watched. The Hatch family organized against policies, and their apartment is also informed by extensive oral histories on African Americans, the Great Migration, public housing and the roots of environmental justice there.
People on the guided tour also reacted with recollection and delight to the still lifes in the Hatch apartment. Family members’ cap-and-gown graduation portraits line the wall just above the living room bookcase filled with a set of World Book
The National Public Housing Museum (Barry Brecheisen photo).
encyclopedias (because Mother Jackson valued education). Across the room, a lit-up Jesus portrait hangs above the TV and tables with the 1968 Sears Christmas catalog, an embroidered hankie, and an Art Moderne ashtray filled with Chicago Transit Authority paper transfers used for multiple rides.
In the youths’ shared bedroom is a record player with a stack of 45 rpm singles: Aretha Franklin’s “Dr. Feelgood” and Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Sing a Song.” Laying across a bed is a sweatshirt from Crane College, Chicago’s first junior college and the predecessor to Malcolm X College.
Personal stories of pride
A point of pride from the earliest discussions about the public housing museum is that public housing had been home to so many popular music artists: Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Jay Z, Mary J. Blige, Curtis Mayfield, Nas, and more.
“From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Houston to Chicago, Minneapolis to Memphis, residents of public housing remember how neighbors such as myself…used music across genres to fill in the sounds of love, struggle and unity that made public housing a communal home. Many of these artists attribute their success to their experiences in public housing,” notes a wall tag by DJ Spinderella, who lived in the Louis H. Pink Houses in Brooklyn and who was involved with the hiphop group Salt-N-Pepa.
DJ Spinderella curated the NPHM’s “REC Room,” an interactive space akin to a record store where visitors can go through albums of various public housing stars, sit down and play them, or activate another tag on the album cover to hear more of the artist’s story. It’s a great space to take a break, to sit and let the experience sink in.
NPHM gathered input not only from the CHA and its residents, but from housing authorities in Akron, San Diego, Los Angeles, Yonkers, NY; Corpus Christi, Fort Worth and Waco, TX. There were also oral histories from individuals across the U.S., a tradition continued with the Beauty Turner Oral Histo-
ry Academy, named for the late Robert Taylor Homes activist; and by the Dr. Timuel Black Jr. Recording Studio, named for the Chicago oral historian who died in 2021 (StreetWise Vol. 28 No. 6) at age 102, after a lifetime on a first-name basis with everyone from singer Nat King Cole to Mayor Harold Washington.
A yearly rotating collection entitled “History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Public Housing” in the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Gallery rapidly delivers mini-stories of myriad public housing residents:
• High School Graduation Photos from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who lived in the Bronxdale Houses (seen by her mother as a “safer, cleaner, brighter alternative to the decaying tenement where we had lived”) from 1957 to 1972; they were later renamed in her honor;
• Rosary Beads from Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox, the first African American to lead a Fortune 500 company, who lived in the Bernard M. Baruch Homes from 1970-82;
• A Platinum Copy of REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” (1980) from LaTonya Floyd, who lived in the Cuney Homes of Houston between 1984 and 1986, because she and her brother, George Floyd (Cuney Homes 1984-2014), sang it almost daily in the week before he was killed by police in 2020. A member of REO Speedwagon presented it to her.
• The Marshall High School letter sweater of Ned Lufrano, who lived at the Jane Addams Homes from 1938 to 1952, between ages 6 and 20; and who mastered a one-handed jump shot that won him a spot on Marshall’s basketball team.
• The Boxing Belt of Lee Roy Murphy, who lived in the Robert Taylor Homes from 1972-83.
• The Motorcycle Jacket of Tara Stamps, who lived in the Cabrini-Green Homes from 1962-72, in honor of Marion Nzinga Stamps, “Queen of Cabrini,” from 1963 until her death in 1996.
What happens next for public housing?
All is not happy reverie, however. In between the Turovitz and Hatch apartments is the unit of the 1950s, entitled “What Happens Next?” Returning WWII vets of color were not welcomed by white neighbors, according to the immersive installation from Manual Cinema based on a script by Princeton University scholar-activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. The multi-channel projection blends animation, shadow puppetry and oral history to show how the Federal Housing Administration policy known as “redlining” – terming loans in Black neighborhoods too risky to guarantee – led to decades of disinvestment and further inequality there. As the federal government also lowered the income level for public housing and evicted those who made too much, the Jane Addams Homes became primarily low-income Black by the late 1960s. As a result, there was also less money coming in to maintain the homes, which led to dilapidation and demolition.
Public housing became the last resort for the poorest of the poor, but it was originally created by a government that believed in providing affordable housing for as many people as possible, said NPHM Executive Director Lisa Yun Lee, PhD.
So in addition to looking backward, NPHM now sees that it must look to the future and make housing policy more transparent, Dr. Lee said. If you only use the income from rent and do not designate line items for repair, buildings will crumble from deferred maintenance. Balconies will become unsafe, elevators will not work.
This policy mission of NPHM is carried out in another yearly revolving exhibit, “Case Studies on Paradoxes of Public Housing.” Currently, the subject is Millers River, in Cambridge, MA. The renovation of its 19-story tower with 300 apartments for elderly and disabled residents illustrates truly public housing, according to the museum, instead of that controlled by private partners angling for federal funding. In order to renovate Millers River, the Cambridge Housing Authority applied for and received $66 million in federal tax credits, which could go to a corporation to lower its taxes. The Cambridge Housing Authority sold the tax credits to Wells Fargo for $71 million.
“Right now, we are living in a world where the government doesn’t build new housing, it creates vouchers for housing, which private landlords run,” Lee said.
The privatized model means that when 100 units are demolished, they are replaced with a like number of mixed-income units: one-third each public housing, affordable and market rate. Theoretically, the market-rate housing pays for the public housing, “but the math doesn’t match,” Lee said. “You’ve taken away 100 units of public housing and only replaced it with 33.”
As a result, the CHA’s Plan for Transformation is unfulfilled. The waiting list for public housing is anywhere from six months to 25 years, the CHA said in its FY2023 report. Dr. Lee also quoted an alderperson at the NPHM opening who said she went on the list when she was pregnant, and now 18 years later, her child is in college and a unit has opened up.
The NPHM counters the old racist stereotypes that made public housing easy to demolish. It believes in the right of all people to have a place to call home, and works for housing as a human right. “How is it possible, for housing to exist only as a commodity in the private sector rather than us advocating housing as a basic necessity and a human right, and to make government accountable to its people?”
Public housing history also has the answers for today’s problems. Tenant organizing meant checking up on old people or walking kids to school, she said.
There is not a single county in the United States where a minimum wage worker can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. Yet 89 other nations around the world refer to housing as a human right.
“We can learn from other nations about how housing is part of the common good," Dr. Lee said.
U.S. Workplace Safety: Still A Serious Problem
by Dr. Victor G. Devinatz
Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” tells the shocking story of abject working-class poverty as well as the meatpacking plants’ horrendous working conditions in early 20th century southwest Chicago. Sinclair spent seven weeks interviewing and observing Chicago meatpacking plant workers. He learned of the brutal work pace with acid eating away picklers’ and woolpluckers’ hands, with beef-trimmers’ thumbs chopped down to stumps. The public’s outrage over the meatpacking industry’s abuses and unsanitary conditions did not result in passage of health and safety legislation but rather the Pure Food and Drug Act in June 1906. A federal law, however, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), was not enacted until 1970 to protect US workers’ workplace safety and health.
Nobody contends on Workplace Safety Day 2025 (Monday, April 28), commemorated annually by the International Labour Organization (ILO), that US workplace safety rivals that of the early 20th century. And US workers have experienced additional improvements since then. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, per capita income has risen from $7,378 (in 2022 dollars) in 1900 to $37,683 in 2022. Child labor was 6% of the labor force in 1900 with 1.75 million children ages 10 to 15 employed. Today, federal regulations prevent children under 14 to be employed in all non-agricultural jobs and limit the hours and kinds of work performed by those under 16; anyone under 18 cannot work in hazardous occupations. Finally, US manufacturing’s average work week registered 53 hours in 1900; in July 2024, it was 40.6 hours.
That said, US workplace safety remains a serious problem of which few people are aware. For example, the ILO indicates that US occupational fatalities per 100,000 workers (5.3) and US non-fatal occupational industries per 100,000 workers (900) is worse than other (post) industrial democracies including the United Kingdom (.8, 692), Sweden (.8, 689), Norway (1.1, 48), and Australia (1.6, 899).
Non-fatal occupational injuries can still be severe. Under the OSH Act, employers in 29 states are required to report all workplace injuries resulting in amputation, loss of an eye, or a hospital overnight stay. (Employers in Puerto Rico and 21 other states must self-report to state agencies). According to the Economic Policy Insti-
tute, from January 1, 2015 to May 31, 2022, 74,025 severe injuries were recorded from the 29 states, a daily average of 27 workers. And while manufacturing industries, specifically meatpacking and poultry processing, suffered the greatest quantity of severe injuries, companies reporting the highest number of serious injuries were in non-manufacturing, including the US Postal Service, Walmart, United Parcel Service, and FedEx.
Other workplace safety issues in the 21st century’s third decade were neither concerns upon “The Jungle”’s publication nor OSH Act’s passage, including the existence of gig workers, workplace violence, the COVID-19 virus, and climate change. Since gig workers are independent contractors, the OSH Act does not cover them. The National Safety Council reports, during 2021-2022, US workplace assaults resulted in 57,610 injuries: in 2022, 525 attacks were workplace deaths. And according to the OSH Administration, from February 2020 through October 2023, the COVID-19 virus led to 2,156 workplace fatalities. Finally, climate change poses workplace safety threats due to excessive heat, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, increase in vector-borne diseases, and from clean-up work due to extreme weather.
What can be done to improve US workplace safety? Implementing stronger federal and state health and safety legislation or having tougher enforcement of current laws would be a major step. For example, the ILO reports there is currently only one inspector per 100,000 US employed persons! Organizing more work-
ers into trade unions would also enhance workplace safety.
Trade unions improve workplace safety for several reasons. They file OSH Act complaints more often than individuals. Moreover, unionized workplaces are inspected more frequently than nonunion work sites. Additionally, union workers possess better health insurance coverage than nonunion employees, which improves the former’s general health. Trade unions also educate their members regarding their health and safety rights and train them to recognize and file workplace hazard complaints. Finally, labor contracts contain provisions exceeding the OSH Act’s standards while preventing employees from staffing overlong shifts as well as mandating the use of safety equipment. Research demonstrates that unionization relates to fewer workplace fatalities. For example, Michael Zoorob found that increasing the unionization rate by one percent correlates with a 2.8% decrease in workplace deaths.
It is difficult to envision passage of stronger health and safety legislation, given the current political climate. Additionally, despite a slight increase in union membership in 2023, union organizing remains exceedingly difficult. That said, the first step towards making meaningful US workplace safety changes is promoting public awareness of this serious problem. If accomplished, perhaps it will encourage action like “The Jungle”’s publication and the occurrence of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire did in leading to passing a New York fire safety law more than a century ago.
Dr. Victor G. Devinatz is Distinguished Professor of Management, specializing in labor relations, and was the Hobart and Marian Gardner Hinderliter Endowed Professor (2014-2015) at Illinois State University. He can be contacted at vgdevin@ilstu.edu.
