Bad Boss Detox
If you’ve ever had a boss who made you question your life choices, a job that felt like a slow descent into madness, or coworkers who deserved their own reality show (for all the wrong reasons)—welcome to your new favorite podcast. Bad Boss Detox is your safe space to laugh, vent, and reclaim your sanity after dealing with toxic workplaces.
Hosted by Ivy Hensley and Katie Boothe, a Gen Xer and a Millennial with the workplace scars to prove it, we’re serving up hilarious stories, workplace survival tips, and an overflowing helping of snark. Whether you're plotting your escape or just need validation that yes, your boss is the problem, we’ve got you covered.
Because quitting may not always be an option—but laughing about it definitely is.
Bad Boss Detox
Bad Bosses of History: Meet the Original Workplace Villains
Workplace horror stories are nothing new—history is filled with bosses whose greed, cruelty, and disregard for human life led to some of the darkest chapters in labor history. In this episode of Bad Boss Detox, we take a sobering look at four of the worst offenders, whose actions sparked protests, strikes, and, in some cases, tragic loss of life.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire—where locked doors and unsafe conditions caused an unbelievable tragedy. Then they tried it again.
Henry Clay Frick—the ruthless steel magnate who crushed strikes with deadly force.
George Pullman—the railroad tycoon who built a town to control his workers, then bled them dry.
The Match Girl s' Rebellion—where young women stood up to the factory that poisoned them for profit.
These aren’t just bad bosses; they’re reminders of why labor protections exist today. Join us as we examine their stories, the lives affected, and the workers who fought back against impossible odds.
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Isaac Harris & Max Blanck: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
death, tragic fire
Henry Clay Frick: The Homestead Steel Strike
gun violence
George Pullman: Pullman, Illinois
slavery, dehumanization of workers, high control group
William Bryant & Francis May: The Match Girls' Rebellion
child abuse, neglect, illness, cancer
Looking Back: The Gilded Age Sucked
Email MadLibs
Listener Story Time!
Vocabulary Word of the Week
Welcome to Bad Boss Detox, a podcast about moving forward after surviving a toxic boss, because therapy is expensive, but this podcast is free Yay. In this episode, we're going to talk about some of the worst bosses in history. We're going to share some stories and put some things in perspective, so stay tuned.
Katie:Well, welcome back everybody. Hi Ivy, how are you? Hey Katie, I'm great. How are you? I'm great. What did you do this week?
Ivy:I went to New York City. What, yes, I went to New York City. I went and saw the Outsiders on Broadway I'm wearing my Do it For Johnny t-shirt Ate a lot of cheesecake, hung out with some dear, dear friends and walked around a lot Central Park people watching. Got to meet the Squirrel Whisperer Ooh.
Katie:I love that. Oh, that's great. I'm glad you had a good trip.
Katie:Yeah, it was great, except for the Delta it's always, except for Delta. What did I do this week? What?
Ivy:did you do this week, Katie?
Katie:You know it's a blur. I worked a lot so I've been helping my friend who took my old job. At the school where I used to work, the theater teacher that replaced me designed lights and stuff for her show that's coming up. That day that I went, the kids showed up for their rehearsal about 10 minutes early, so it kind of overlapped with when I was there and it did not take five minutes before I had a migraine because the kids were screaming and running around and I was just triggered. What age Triggered they age? I was triggered. They're middle school, Okay.
Ivy:Yeah.
Katie:Yeah, I was shocked. Like as soon as they walked in, I was like I got to go. I can't do this. Not your thing anymore, not my problem. It's not my circus, I'm not the ringmaster anymore, I'm not responsible for making them all sit down and be quiet and responsible for making them all sit down and be quiet, and so I was just like I'm going to leave before I yell at a child that isn't my job to yell at, and my headache was like fine by the time I got home. It was. It came on so fast, it was like my body rejecting the experience.
Ivy:It was not a headache, it was a warning. It was, it was a get out. There's my spirit guides with like red flags.
Katie:They're like girl, get out. Yeah, let's talk about some bad bosses from history. Dear friends, listeners, my sweet summer children, this has all the trigger warnings. This stuff that we're going to talk about involves some death, some abuse, some really upsetting shit. So please check the show notes for specific trigger warnings and times. But if you ever get the chance to like go relive your life in the 1800s, don't, yeah, just don't.
Ivy:How about don't Except for the fashion?
Katie:You know, I really do look good in those outfits, though, yeah yeah, yeah, love some vintage clothes, don't love some vintage attitudes. Yeah, really. You know, when I was in Hello Dolly, the costumer wanted to put me ina walking suit with a bustle and I was like, girl, I don't need a bustle, I'm already bustling. I got my own bustle. My bustle comes preloaded.
Ivy:So we've picked out four of the worst bosses in history from the 1800s early 1900s. Katie's going to do a couple, I'm going to do a couple. We're going to talk about the more obscure ones, ones that maybe you haven't heard of. I had never heard of any of these, except I heard of one of mine on the Big Bang Theory, because Sheldon likes trains.
Katie:Oh, I had never heard of any of these people either, and I asked my history buff husband too, and he was like I've never knew any of that stuff.
Ivy:OK, so my first one is the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. It was started by Isaac Harris and Max Blanc. Isaac and Max were the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. They came to the United States from Russia as immigrants and they were eventually known as the Shirtwaist Kings Harris being a tailor and Blanc being a garment contractor. And first things first, what in the hell is a shirtwaist? A shirtwaist is a blouse. Simply put, it started when someone decided that a woman's dress could be made into two pieces a blouse tapered at the waist and a skirt so they can charge us twice.
Ivy:Yeah, exactly. So these old chaps decided a shirtwaist wouldn't confuse anyone, right? The pair became quite wealthy and opened more factories in new york, new jersey and pennsylvania. And when I say quite wealthy and opened more factories in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And when I say quite wealthy, I mean quite greedy. And they took on a very lavish lifestyle, eventually even being chauffeured to their factories. Isaac and Max thought if they just hired mostly women and girls, some as young as 14, it would be easy to mistreat them because they're just women, Right? Many of them were also Jewish immigrants, also Italian immigrants. The working conditions for the women were horrible, to say the least. While the men were off getting rich on the backs of these young women, girls. They were forced to work 12 to 14-hour days with no breaks. Their pay was shitty around $6 a week. In today's dollars that would be around $200 a week, but at 12 to 14 hours a day that would be pretty crappy.
Ivy:And they were watched throughout their shifts by a foreman who also searched them every night before they left, to make sure they were not stealing, which is an important part of this story. What would they be stealing? Shirts, shirt waists, just the waist of the shirt. So these two bad bosses refused to adhere to agreements with the newly formed garment workers union at all. They wanted no part, just no unions. Our girls are our girls and you can't tell us what to do with them. But the worst part is they locked the secondary factory doors from the outside. So why they're being searched for stealing is beyond me, since they can't get out before they're searched by their foreman. So the workers could not leave to take a break and they could not steal anything. So when the women finally had enough, in November of 1909, they decided to go on strike. But this offended their greedy bosses, of course. So Isaac and Max hired policemen and thugs to see a decline in their million-dollar profits. So they agreed to somewhat shorter hours and a little bit better pay, but they still refused the union.
Ivy:Just over a year later, on March 25, 1911, a fire started on the 10th floor. Isaac and Max couldn't be bothered to alert anyone or even yell fire. They just climbed out the rooftop across to another building to safety, while the employees left in the building were none the wiser. Of the 200 employees left in the building now, remember many of them were 14-year-old girls. Of the 200 people left in the building, now, remember many of them were 14-year-old girls. Of the 200 people left in the building, 146 died in the fire.
Ivy:Holy shit, uh-huh. They either died from the fire itself, the smoke, or jumping from the building. Now I want to say here I didn't add this in my notes, but I found that there was a young man studying in the building across the street and he saw the fire and gathered some friends and some ladders and rescued some people with the ladders, and I wish that I had jotted his name down to give him some credit. All this happened because the two were still locking the exits to prevent employees from stealing from them. Immediately after the fire, harris and Blanc began damage control because what do they care? Right, beginning an extensive advertising campaign and calling reporters for interviews to boast that they had taken all the right precautions. But on April 11th they were both arrested for manslaughter and I didn't note this either but only seven counts, 146 people. I feel like there should be at least 146 counts of manslaughter.
Ivy:But it was a different time. The entire trial was centered around that locked door and, despite the outrage and over 100 witnesses, they were acquitted and they had to be hidden away from the angry mobs of families of the 146 dead factory workers. So while the angry family members were waiting by their limo to, you know, kick their ass, rough them up a little bit, like they did their daughters. This pair of incredibly bad bosses snuck off to the subway. Then they filed an insurance claim, got $60,000, which in money today is $2,250,000. So they basically profited $400 per victim, oh my God. And when they later settled with the families, they only gave each family about a week's worth of wages and we talked earlier about that. A week's worth of wages, and we talked earlier about that. So each family got around $200. So they still profited from the deaths of all of these people that they caused because they were greedy fuckers.
Katie:They were so worried about people stealing, stealing.
Ivy:I mean, if you're being searched before you can walk out of the building, why do we also need to lock the secondary entrance, like I read somewhere that there were women just beating on that door. They didn't even realize that. You know that they were. I think they all knew they were locked in because somebody. I read somewhere too that that was their biggest complaint. Was they lock us in. Biggest complaint was they lock us in? Yeah, so later they were fined again. They went back into business. They reopened the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, but they never regained their original profits. So they tried to open another company, but they were later fined $20. They had a $20 fine. I want you to guess what they were fined for. Can you guess what? They were later fined $20. They had a $20 fine. I want you to guess what they were fined for. Can you guess what they were fined for?
Katie:Not paying to use the subway Locking the door again.
Ivy:They locked the door from the outside again. They killed 146 people and the fine for trying to do it again was $20. Y'all?
Katie:what.
Ivy:I'm so upset. They got busted for sewing fake labels into garments that said that the garments were made under sound conditions.
Katie:I'm sorry for laughing, but like they got fined for sewing labels in that said they were made safely, Fake labels.
Ivy:They were fake labels that claimed that the garments had been made under sound conditions. So the two finally they broke up. They went their separate ways after that because they could never get back to the same way. I think one of them opened another shirt waste company somewhere else and the other one did something completely different. So that's the story of Isaac Harris and Max Blanc. And a not so fun fact about this fire is, up until 9-11, it had been the worst fire in New York history.
Katie:Wow, well, that was certainly horrifying. What do you got, Katie? Okay, well, you know, I've always been a person who's pretty pro-unions, but this is an example of a story about a union who really could have made some better choices. When we were looking at the list of worst bosses in history, this one came up with possibly the best nickname of all time. His name is Henry Clay Frick, and the nickname that he was bestowed by his employees was Harry Cockbag. Was bestowed by his employees was Harry Cockbag, which I love and is such a beautiful, I mean chef's kiss. What's his real name? What's his real first name? His real name is Henry, henry. Okay, his middle name is Clay and his last name is Frick, which I'm like. Why'd you go with Harry?
Ivy:Cockbag. When Frick was right there. Frick was right there. That's what I'm thinking too, but also Harry Cockbag is probably my favorite new thing to say.
Katie:Today I learned Um, yeah, so you've heard of Andrew Carnegie, right? Um, another giant asshole, but this is like the lesser known uh, giant asshole piece of Carnegie steel. So this guy, henry Clay Frick, was a steel tycoon in the 1800s. He was responsible for developing a lot of these things called coke ovens, which is not cocaine, but it is like the fucking worst thing ever. So apparently, one of the components to make steel is known as coke c-o-k-e, and in order to make it they have, there has to be this chemical process taking place in these huge ovens, which burned huge amounts of toxic chemicals and put all kinds of terrible emissions into the air, and basically they are not in use anymore. There's only like 12 of them left in the world, which is too many if you ask me, but still so.
Katie:This guy was in charge of making these huge ovens, which made a ton of people sick. He did a lot of messed up stuff, super obsessed with his wealth and very self-centered. One of the things that listed that he did was he decided he wanted a private fishing lake for himself and his fishing bros. So he bought a lake in pennsylvania, but the dam to the lake was leaking and since he was so cheap, he put off fixing it until it cracked and it flooded an entire town and killed 2 000 people. Oh my god, yeah, um, but that's like unrelated to him being a boss. What a hairy cock bag. Just a bag full of cocks. Yeah, so that wasn't even related to him being a bad boss, but I think that that kind of demonstrates his character. On the other hand, he actually was a very wealthy person and was a patron of the arts. So there's a huge art collection. In several of his giant mansions he was responsible for buying and supporting these artists and preserving their work. So like I'll give him 1% credit for that, because that stuff is cool. However, there is no amount of good karma that can make up for this shit.
Katie:So there's this union called the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. It was one of the strongest unions in the steel industry and it represents skilled laborers at Carnegie Steel's Homestead Works. So this particular factory was called Homestead Works. Their union contract was set to expire on July 1st 1892. And rather than actually negotiate with the union, andrew Carnegie, who had a history of publicly supporting unions like he, would say that he was pro-unions but privately he was very anti-unions. He left labor relations in the hands of his ruthless plant manager, henry K Frick. So he was like I'm out, I'm going to let you handle this.
Katie:Frick decided he was going to break this union, so he cut wages by 20 percent. He refused to negotiate with the Amalgamated Association and he set a take it or leave it deadline for the new contract. So he cut their wages by 20 percent and was like you can take it or you just walk. He decided that, since the workers were pretty pissed off about that, he was just going to lock them out of the factory. So he locked workers out on June 29th, which was two days before the contract was supposed to expire, barring union members from entering the mill. And he built a 12-foot high fence around the mill, topped with barbed wire and high-powered water cannons, so the workers dubbed it Fort Frick. At that time he brought in some strike breakers to replace the locked out workers, knowing that this would escalate tensions. So he was just like I fucking dare you.
Katie:The steel workers decided to strike because they were already working in this super toxic place for barely any money. But Frick hired 300 armed Pinkerton detectives, which is a private security force infamous for suppressing labor strikes. Yeah, we know about the Pinkertons. And so the Pinkertons arrived on barges they were sneaking up the river Before dawn on July 6th. They were intending to break the strike, but the strikers at that point were armed with rifles and homemade weapons and they physically started battling these guys. So gunfire erupted and after an hours-long battle, several people had died. There were at least seven workers and three Pinkertons who were killed. So this is what I meant about like this union kind of made some wrong choices here, like you guys could have just not started shooting people, but you did.
Katie:After this brutal fight, the pinkerton surrendered and the angry strikers beat them as they were marched out of town, which, like fuck the pinkertons. But this is not the way to negotiate. You know, none of this is the way to to go. This is this is the way to not do it. Okay, yeah, eventually the national guard was called in with the military protecting the mill. Then frick resumed production, brought in some scabs and was like all right, let's just let's go.
Katie:The strike was totally unsuccessful because people got shot and it escalated Right, and so, without the plant or the public support, the power of this union totally collapsed. The strike officially ended in November of 1892, which is a long, pretty long strike from like July to November. Wow yeah, the union was crushed. Workers returned to the plant with lower wages, longer hours and lost union representation. So Frick's plan totally worked. What a waste, oh my God. Except for there was an unrelated dude. Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick. He shot him twice and stabbed him, but Harry Cockbag survived, good grief. He was shot and stabbed but he survived.
Ivy:Shot twice and stabbed.
Katie:Yeah, is this guy like a fucking vampire? I don't know. The attack totally backfired, turning public opinion against the strikers.
Ivy:Yeah.
Katie:And so, as a result of this homestead strike, it was considered a huge setback for still unionization for decades, reinforcing the power of industrialists like Carnegie and Frick. Don't be a hairy cock bag, Just you know. If you're going to be a cock bag, at least do some manscaping.
Ivy:So George Pullman is next and, like I said, I mentioned Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, mentioned the Pullman, one of the Pullman coaches, on an episode of Big Bang Theory and I said hey, I'm researching that guy.
Ivy:George Pullman was an industrialist in the mid-1800s. He invented the railroad sleeper car, also known as the palace car, which is fitting, since he seemed to fancy himself. A king Sounds familiar. So he always thought there should be a more luxurious way to travel. So he designed the sleeper car after the packet boats that he knew from the Erie Canal and I could only find like little old timey pictures of packet boats, but they look like, you know, they have little passenger rooms in them. So he did that. And after President Lincoln was assassinated, George arranged for one of his fancy sleeper cars to transport the president's body and also the family of the president. So this created a great demand for his luxury cars. It kind of put him on the map, so to speak.
Katie:So he capitalized on the assassination.
Ivy:Yeah, yeah, yeah of course he did so. Pretty soon he became and this, might you know, the first part of this sentence I'm going to say right now sounds hunky-dory, but then the rest of it gets pretty gross so he became the biggest employer of African-Americans post-Civil War.
Katie:Sounds great right, that's nice. Yeah, how could this go wrong?
Ivy:Well, here you go. Because he thought former slaves had the finger quotes here. Right kind of training to serve businessmen. Oh God yeah. The job of Pullman porters became highly respected, though, in Black communities. Everyone really respected the Pullman porters apparently just the Black communities, because all the porters were called George. Because I learned that it was common among slave owners to not bother to know anyone's given name, but just call them the name of their owner.
Ivy:Yeah, it's a dehumanization thing there was a movie called 10,000 Black Men Called George, and it was about George Pullman's trains and all these people that worked for him. He also hired Black women, of course, to be the housekeepers on the trains. So he was right on top of that. Housekeepers on the trains so he was, you know, right on top of that. Most were not paid an actual wage, they actually just relied on tips, and there was a humorist at the time that would tip them all $100 and call them by their names. So they always wanted to be on his train. So by 1875, he had bought out all the other train companies, most of the other train companies and transportation companies. He had over $100,000 worth of patents and around 700 cars in operation, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, and I did more of my little math on how much that would be. So $100,000 in 1872 is equivalent to today's $2,586,926.23.
Katie:That is some specific and impressive math, hey, thanks.
Ivy:Google did it. Pullman decided that he needed to own a whole town to house his employees. Like he didn't want them just living wherever they wanted to live, he wanted them to live in Pullman, illinois. So he bought 4,000 acres for $800,000. You can do that math by going back to the $2,586,932.23. Just south of Chicago he had the entire town built from the ground up Houses, apartment buildings, shopping centers, theaters, parks, a church, a library all for his new factory employees, along with the new factory and a hotel called Hotel Florence, named after George's daughter. Fun fact in the 1930s Hotel Florence was one of the most popular brothels in the city Slay. At first everyone thought George was the bee's knees. They thought you know country, air fine, new buildings and amenities wonderful, not so much. It all went straight to his head and he became the world's worst HOA. President. Oh, they're already bad. Oh, my God, I. So much. It all went straight to his head and he became the world's worst HOA president.
Ivy:Oh, they're already bad. Oh my God, I would never. He prohibited independent newspapers, public speeches, town meetings and open discussion.
Katie:Yeah, no one's allowed to talk about their feelings ever.
Ivy:No open discussion for you, ever no open discussion for you. The church remained empty because no denomination that he approved of wanted to pay the rent he was asking and no one else was allowed. So he had an empty church. He hired inspectors to barge into the homes of his employees who lived in his town to inspect for cleanliness and whatever else he felt like inspecting for that day. And if he was displeased by any tenant they would be given 10 days to get out and they would be fired. And then he invented Pullman money. So they were no longer paid with actual money, they were paid with Pullman money which could only be spent in Pullman Cool. No alcohol was allowed anywhere but at the Florence Hotel, strictly prohibited anywhere else. And remember you got dudes busting into your house to see if there's dust on the furniture, if you've got a beer, you're in trouble.
Ivy:So by 1893, 1894, the Great Depression had begun and the demand for the cars started to wane. So Pullman thought I need to start making. You know I need to make, still make all this money. So I'm going to pay my people less. I'm not going to lower their rent because they still had to pay rent to live in the house or the prices of anything in the company town. Live in the house or the prices of anything in the company town.
Ivy:Some workers were making $9.07 for two weeks. I didn't do any math on that one. They were making $9.07 for two weeks of work and their rent was $9. So they had $0.07 left to feed their family. Oh yeah, finally, the workers had had enough and on May 12, 1894, they went on strike. There's a lot of striking today. The American Railway Union leader, whose name was Eugene Debs he led the rebellion Pullman was given five days to respond, but he flat out refused. So what did George do instead? He locked up his house and his business and he left town. What Bye-bye? So you know, with all this union, a lot of unions started in the era that we're talking about today.
Ivy:And a lot of things, like OSHA, the story I told before OSHA came to be after the fire that I spoke about in my first story. So soon after all the Pullman cars were cut from the trains, folks got fired, entire rail lines were shut down, resulting in a blockade of the federal mail, which was really the only thing anyone cared about was the mail getting through. So that was another giant mess. Debs tried to keep the peace, but ultimately riots broke out amongst the workers and somehow Pullman convinced the president of the United States, who was Grover Cleveland at the time, to send in the freaking army to subdue the strikers. What I don't understand is, in these times, how the military keeps coming in to mess with these people.
Katie:Yeah, they called the National Guard because it was. I mean, I guess people were freaking out. They had to have somebody calm them down, but like it's just going to escalate it.
Ivy:Well, Grover called in the Army to subdue the striking workers, which resulted in many injuries and about 34 deaths. That number is different in the different articles, so I'm not positive on that number. The courts ultimately sided with the railway owners and not the workers, and Eugene Debs was thrown in jail for contempt of court.
Katie:It's almost like if you have money, you can just hire a really good lawyer and get out of anything.
Ivy:Yeah, it's almost like if you have money, you're the only ones who matter. Yeah, Finally, the state of Illinois did file a suit against Pullman and his town was ultimately annexed to Chicago. And a little side note on this one Around the same time that he was sending the troops in to murder the laborers, President Cleveland also signed into law the new holidays to celebrate laborers. Labor Day came to be while he was murdering strikers.
Katie:Wow.
Ivy:Nice try, Grover. And here's a little limerick poem, whatever you want to call it. That was from the Pullman Museum. So I guess these train cars, I mean they're still in use, because Big Bang Theory, but anyway.
Katie:Yeah, I get it. Trains are cool, Like not saying they're not.
Ivy:We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman hell.
Katie:That is chilling, wow, wow.
Ivy:Can you imagine living in a town where you can own? It's like Monopoly. You can only use the money and he pays you in this fake currency, so you can't even leave.
Katie:You're stuck there. This is the bad place. I can't imagine how completely powerless and stuck those poor people felt.
Ivy:I know and, like I said in the beginning, they thought this is great, a brand new house. This is built just for me.
Katie:I get my work Initially, I could see why it would be tempting, you know yeah.
Ivy:Yeah, it seems almost cozy and then it's like the hammer comes down. Yeah, wow, what a dick yeah.
Katie:Wow, what a dick, Mm-hmm. I wanted to do this story last because I actually, as I dug into the research of it, I found it really inspiring, which was sort of rare considering some of the stuff that went down in this time period. So this is the story of Bryant and May Match Company and the Match Girls Rebellion. A little bit of background William Bryant and Francis May established the Match Company in London in 1843. So all of this takes place in London the same time period as the other stuff was going on in America. In London, the same time period as the other stuff was going on in America In the 1850s and 60s, they became one of the leading match manufacturers in Britain and they specialized in white phosphorus matches which were cheap but highly toxic Cheap to make, cheap to buy, both Cheap to make, cheap to buy, but toxic chemicals involved.
Katie:So during the 1870s and 1880s there started to be reports emerging about really horrific working conditions at the Bryant and May factory, which was in Bow, East London. The workers endured really long hours, up to 14 hours a day, terrible pay, so their wages were between four to eight shillings a week, which was the equivalent of about 15 to 30 British pounds or about 18 to 40 dollars. Now they were paid on productivity, not by the hour, so it depended on how many boxes of matches they were able to produce. Much like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that you mentioned before, they almost exclusively hired young girls, and we're talking like between the ages of six to like 18, early 20s. Yeah, and some of them were not employed in the factory but they were employed in their homes. So there were people that would take these match supplies home and make matches on their kitchen table in their house.
Ivy:Oh wow, Work from home in the 1800s Interesting.
Katie:Work from home yes, but not in a great way, as we'll find out. So this pay was barely enough to survive, especially given the cost of food and rent and everything On top of their terrible pay, the Bryant and May match girls were subject to fines deducted from their wages. They were fined for being late, for dropping a match, they were fined for talking and for having dirty workbenches and dirty feet. Like they were judged on their cleanliness, even though they were working in this factory. That was like 100 years old at that point.
Ivy:So take your shoes off and show me your feet.
Katie:That sounds real weird and I don't need I have questions. But yeah, you know the worst, the worst thing of all. They had all these fines, they had terrible conditions, but they were using white phosphorus. Now there's two kinds of phosphorus red phosphorus and white phosphorus and the red phosphorus is safer to work with. I don't have a lot of information about exactly how toxic it is, but the white phosphorus is extremely dangerous to work with and these girls were forced to eat lunch at the same workbenches where they had this toxic chemical all over them all day. And this exposure to this chemical caused a condition known as Fossey jaw which basically doctors can tell now was a cancer. At the time they, you know, weren't really aware that cancer was a thing, but this was a known problem. So it was named Fossey jaw because they knew that it was coming from working with this white phosphorus. Charles Dickens wrote about it in an essay in 1852. So that was like 30, some years before all of this came to a head. It's really disturbing what he said about it and I'm going to read it to you. But we may decide to cut this out, but basically this condition, cut this out, but basically this condition, fosse jaw was osteonecrosis. So osteo meaning bones, and necrosis meaning dead flesh, death of the flesh, pretty gnarly, yeah. So I'm going to describe this to you. This is the quote from Charles Dickens' essay.
Katie:Annie Brown is 20 years of age, of pale and scrupulous aspect. She went to work at the Lucifer factory when she was nine years old and after she had worked for about four years the complaint began like a toothache. Her teeth had all been sound before that time. She was occupied in the lids on the boxes. She could smell the phosphorus at first but soon grew used to it. At night she could see that her clothes were glowing on the chair where she had put them. Her hands and arms were glowing also. On uncovering her face we perceived that her lower jaw is almost entirely wanting. At the side of her mouth there are two or three large holes. The jaw was removed at the infirmary seven years ago. So this young woman had her jaw removed because of this condition and also she was glowing.
Ivy:Yeah.
Katie:It's like really, really upsetting, and I can't believe that it took so long for anybody to do anything about this. Because girls didn't matter? Because, yeah, because they were treated as little worker, bee, soldier, slaves. Their well-being they were poor, their well-being didn't matter, oh yeah, they didn't matter, they die, they just get more poor little girls to come Dime a dozen.
Katie:That's right, sickening and very upsetting. But so anyway, in 1888, there was a journalist and a social reformer named Annie Besant. She published an article called White Slavery in London, which is a very incendiary title, in her newspaper, the Link, which was exposing these terrible conditions at Bryant and May. At that time that the article came out, there had already been a boycott started against this match company. So people were starting to realize around that time here's a quote from her article who cares if they die, provided only that the Bryant and May shareholders get their 23 percent. And Bryant and May got really ticked off. They flipped out. They decided to force the workers to sign statements denying these allegations, saying nope, we lied, everything was fine. The match girls refused and they wrote letters to Annie Besant saying you spoke up for us and we weren't going back on you. Besson, saying you spoke up for us and we weren't going back on you, no-transcript.
Katie:So July 5th 1888, 1,400 match girls walk out on strike demanding better wages to end the unfair fines and safer working conditions, like, as you said before, just demanding the right to stay alive, because this osteonecrosis that they were subject to was a death sentence and they had no treatment for that at that time. It was like if you got it, you were done. July 6th the day after that, the Match Girls formed a strike committee and they gained support from journalists, socialists and the trade unions. The strike starts to get national attention. So because they had this support of the trade unions, they took their case to parliament and there was one girl who was 15 years old, walked into the House of Parliament and she took off her scarf and she was bald. And that's when they were like fuck this, here's the good part.
Katie:July 16th, 10 days later, bryant and May agree to the workers' demands, including reinstating the fired workers, ending their unfair fines and improving wages. The Match Girls strike is a success and becomes one of the first victories in industrial labor organizing in Britain. They did this without violence. All they did was go to someone and say this is what's happening to us. They just used their voices. They didn't need weapons, they didn't need violence, they didn't need to involve the National Guard.
Ivy:I was just going to say the queen didn't have to send in the, whatever they are over there like, like we did over here, send in the, send in the troops and beat up these girls.
Katie:Right, they were already beaten up enough. Needless to say, that sparked some serious outrage, but 10 days later, bryant and May agreed to all of the workers' demands, which was really shocking to me, that they were just like all right, yes, Well, they knew their greed was coming to an end.
Katie:They knew they were cooked. Yeah, basically, they reinstated fired workers, they ended their unfair fines and they improved the wages. So this strike was a massive success. And not only that, but this really gives new meaning to the word strike when you think about striking. A match like that was really poignant to me. A mob of 1,400 teenage girls descending on the streets of London, walking in protest and actually making a difference, and not just a difference in their lives, because this the next year in 1889, the London dock workers decided to go on strike as well and fight for their fair wages and better conditions. They also won.
Ivy:So the teenage girls led the charge.
Katie:Yes, these little boss bitches walked out on their job where they were barely earning enough, like this is not enough money to feed anyone, really, but it could have been with these families, could have been the difference between eating and not eating. So, yeah, their bravery and their willingness to speak out about what was happening to them and tell the truth, they inspired these burly bigass dock worker men to do the same thing, and they also won. So this is considered a huge moment in workers' rights and unionism in England, which I hadn't heard anything about this because I didn't learn this in school.
Ivy:No, I didn't learn about this in school either, and I'm curious maybe you know this how did they come up with the idea to strike Like what?
Katie:I found some more quotes Like so one of the girls said when they were asked how they got this idea, one of the girls said well, it just went like Tinder. One girl began and the rest said yes, yeah, so we all went Excellent.
Ivy:I wonder if we have the match girls to thank for all the walkouts we did in high school.
Katie:Probably indirectly Following pressure. In 1891, bryant and May switched from white phosphorus to the safer red phosphorus in their matches. Good for them. In 1901, the British government banned the use of white phosphorus in match production. Even better, but the factory closed in 1979. And now that building is some nice apartments, cool.
Ivy:I understand it. Love a factory transformed into apartments. We love a factory.
Katie:Yeah, a nice little rebrand, love that. So, in short, these young, underpaid and overlooked little match girls did not just change their own lives, they changed labor history. And if that's not the ultimate bad boss detox, then I don't know what is?
Ivy:I love it. I love these girls.
Katie:Slay, if you are also as inspired as I was, there are several websites you can look into, but one of them is matchgirls1888.org. There you can donate to help build a memorial. Oh good, I went to see Little Mermaid last night, the show that I helped do the lighting for, and Ursula had a quote from that show and I was like girl yes. She said sometimes a young woman doesn't know the power of her voice until it's taken away.
Ivy:Yep, I feel that yeah.
Katie:So if you're in a toxic workplace, you are not powerless. These girls had no rights, no legal protections, no money and, at least initially, they didn't have a union backing. And they still won. Secondly, bad bosses hate bad PR. Bryant and May were only forced to cave when the public turned against them. Right, all it takes is one person speaking up. If Annie Besant hadn't written that article, the strike might never have happened. Yep.
Ivy:Another girl.
Katie:Another young woman. Yeah, it's easy to look at these stories from the Gilded Age and whatever and think, like God, why I should really get over it when my toxic boss says things to me that are not okay. Or you know, I'm treated unfairly at my work. You know, maybe I should really just suck it up because I'm not over here. You know, being forced to use their currency and live in a town that they erected, or any of these things that these bosses did.
Ivy:Or having the cleanliness of my feet inspected by my boss.
Katie:Yeah, I'm allowed to go to the bathroom at my job. Yeah, you know, my point is saying like it's not a competition of suffering here. You know Right, this is not about like you're only allowed to quit if your job is just as bad as all of those people. Like we should be looking to these situations and learning from history so that it doesn't repeat itself. Yeah, like I said, if a 13-year-old girl can stand up to their boss, so can you. Absolutely so can you. Little baby boss bitches, love them.
Ivy:I can't even believe how young people working on machinery and mangled hands, yeah Ugh.
Katie:Ugh, it's very upsetting to hear about, but I think it's important because we are currently about to let stuff like this start happening again, I'm afraid.
Ivy:Well, and the things that we're talking about today are the things that led to better working conditions for everyone.
Katie:Yeah, except for Homestead Steel. They fucked up.
Ivy:Everyone is a strong word. Better working conditions. It led to laws. It led to child labor laws. Eventually, yeah, it just, it led to things. So you know, yeah.
Katie:And if you are in a working environment that is anti-union, that's a red flag.
Ivy:Do we even have unions here?
Katie:We are a right to work state, which means that you cannot be forced to join the union, which I guess is fair. But, like a right to work, law in our state prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on their union membership. It also prevents employers from requiring employees to join a union as a condition of employment, which sounds fine, but it's really kind of not. It's basically like weakening the union, you know, because if you are required to join the union in order to have that job, that makes the union stronger.
Ivy:Why would you not want to join the union?
Katie:I don't know. Yeah, I really don't know. When I was a teacher, I was part of the teacher's union and I got a lot of my other fellow teachers to join because, as I mentioned in the first episode, we worked in a county where the parents were very litigious. The union provided some legal representation for us if we were to get ourselves into a lawsuit, so that was like enough reason, but they didn't really. They don't have a lot of negotiating power in a state like this. Yeah Well, that was really dark and scary and awful. I loved it. Let's not go back to the Gilded Age?
Katie:No Like some people seem to really want to do, and if our listeners would like to look up some more about these historical dirtbags, feel free. There's a lot more to learn that we couldn't fit into our descriptions. Oh yeah, for sure. I was fascinated with the Match Girl Rebellion. I want a t-shirt that says I'm a match girl.
Ivy:I mean, I want to learn to be a musician so I can name my band Match Girl Rebellion.
Katie:That's so tight. I don't know, man, it's given Girl Scouts in a great way. I love it. Let's move on to something a little bit lighter, because I need it. Let's do some bad boss email, mad libs, awesome. This is so silly. I'm telling you now Okay, so I need from you a noun Hairy cock bag Okay, and I need an adjective Incredible, another adjective, shitty Okay, and a verb.
Ivy:Eating.
Katie:Okay, all right. So I just got this email from my boss. I need you to kind of like help me interpret it. Okay. So it says I just reviewed your cock bag and it's completely incredible. How could you miss such shitty errors? Fix it by the end of the day or be prepared to eat your job security. Nice, I just reviewed your cock.
Ivy:You know I'm always nervous when people review my cock bag. I'm always like, oh shit, Isn't that like a HIPAA violation? What are they going to think of my cock bag?
Katie:It's way too hairy. Which brings us to my favorite listener story time. Yeah, we need like a theme for listener story time.
Ivy:This listener had a experience with her boss and a printer. So she said the boss was having a rough time getting the printer to work. It kept jamming and stopping working and she would beat it on the side and email the listener and say I need you to get over here and make this printer work. She went over there and got the printer to work Magic. Nothing was wrong with the printer. Her boss got up and left. A little while later yelled put that printer on the back porch. I want to beat it with a baseball bat.
Ivy:So, being the good little employee that she was, got the printer out of the office, carried it out to the back porch, put the printer on the back porch and thought she doesn't have a baseball bat. Where's the baseball bat? I don't know. Went back into the office, went back to work, heard some bashing and some yelling and then finally turned to find her bloody boss standing in the doorway with her hand and she was blubbering something with her hand in the air and blood running down her hand. So this person got up, walked over and said we need to get you to the emergency room, yeah, and to that the boss turned around, stomped her foot and said no, I'm not going.
Katie:You know what? You're going to your room without supper. You're grounded, you're grounded.
Ivy:Boss was about. I'm holding up two fingers this close to losing the finger altogether. Jeez, Turns out she did not have a baseball bat, so she just decided to use her hands.
Katie:Just physically beating this piece of office wood.
Ivy:She physically was beating the printer and throwing it and stomping on it, and when she picked it up to throw it one final time, it almost took her whole finger off like it was a bad gash on her finger. Um, and then several weeks later the boss tried to get her to pull the stitches out. She didn't want, that's not my job. She didn't want to go back to have the stitches removed and said to this listener the doctor said you can do it. And she tried and she failed. Gross.
Katie:I'm not touching anybody's nasty finger. No, for no, no, no, no, no, that's. That's some messed up boundaries in several ways. Oh my God, listener, I'm so glad you survived and I'm glad your boss didn't require, like, a blood transfusion, because, let's be real, that would have been you.
Ivy:Even if it wasn't the same blood type, it sounds like that boss wouldn't have cared. Give me your blood.
Katie:Talk about an energy vampire. Wow, that was a doozy.
Ivy:All right, they'll be coming out of the woodwork. I'm hoping. I'm hoping to get a lot of stories like that one Give us your stories.
Katie:We want to know, and it's not a competition Hard to beat that.
Ivy:Katie, let's do this, let's rate these stories.
Katie:Yeah.
Ivy:Let's rate them on a scale of one to Harry Cockbag.
Katie:I love it. I love it. Okay, you know there was no murder involved, but there was blood there was.
Ivy:Yeah, I'll give it three out of five Harrycock bags. Three out of five in that bag. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with four out of five Harrycock bags, just because this listener attempted to pull stitches out of her boss's finger.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, that brings us to the vocabulary word of the week. Yay, this week's vocabulary word is brought to you by red phosphorus. Red phosphorus, the only correct phosphorus to have in your life.
Katie:The best color of phosphorus the best color of phosphorus for any skin tone. This week's vocabulary word of the week is oligarch, oligarch, oligarch, oligarch also pronounced oligarch, but I've always said oligarch. Both pronunciations are correct, despite what my husband said. So an oligarch is one of a class of individuals who, through private acquisition of state assets, amassed great wealth that is stored especially in foreign accounts and properties, and who maintain close links to the highest government circles. Sounds like a criminal. Yeah, let's break that down a little bit. Yeah, so this is a person who's extremely wealthy, whose wealth was mostly acquired through acquisition of state assets, like government grants, et cetera. A lot of that wealth is stored in foreign accounts, and an oligarch is a person who typically maintains very close links to the highest government circles, so they're usually pretty buddy-buddy with political leaders. Yeah, indeed, I wanted to give you some examples of using this word in a sentence, if I may, oh please.
Katie:This one is a quote from the Chicago Tribune from earlier this year. How dare oligarchs infiltrate and purge departments created and authorized by past leadership to help people? I like it. I like saying it. Yeah, it makes me sound smart and fancy. Oligarchy. I really enjoyed learning all that stuff, even though it was dark and upsetting. I know Me too. Yeah, I feel like it's absolutely worth knowing, and I was questioning why I wasn't taught those things in school. Maybe it's because they didn't want me to rise up against my oppressors, or something, I don't know.
Ivy:Oh, yeah, well, especially, you know, because we're girls.
Katie:Most of these involved exploiting marginalized people, absolutely. Thank you guys so much for listening to our podcast this week.
Ivy:Hope you guys enjoyed and are not too traumatized, and I hear that it's important to say something to the effect of like us, follow us, subscribe. Give us a five-star rating.
Katie:Yeah, if you enjoyed this podcast, please like us, follow us, give us a five-star rating, leave a comment and tell us your bad boss stories. Yes, If you would like to share with us a bad boss story or a toxic workplace story of your own, you can email us at stories at badbossdetoxcom. You can also go to our Facebook page, which is called Bad Boss Detox, and use our Google form there If you like. You can follow us on Instagram. That account is badbossdetoxpod.
Ivy:We're looking forward to getting to know all of you.
Katie:Looking forward to hearing all of your crazy stories so we can laugh about it and heal together. Thanks so much for doing a podcast with me, Ivy.
Ivy:Oh, katie, thank you, it was a blast. It's so much fun.
Katie:All right, I'm going to go take the soup out of the crock pot.
Ivy:All right, I'm going to go feed my husband. Make my husband a steak. Oh yeah, all right, bye.
