Chicago workers occupy factory.

[ckaihatsu]

http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/06/republic-window-occupation

Chicago factory occupied

Lee Sustar reports from Chicago on an occupation by workers who want what's theirs from management and the Bank of America.

December 6, 2008

WORKERS OCCUPYING the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management.

In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation.

"We decided to do it because this is money that belongs to us," said Maria Roman, who's worked at the plant for eight years. "These are our rights."

Word of the occupation spread quickly both among labor and immigrant rights activists--the overwhelming majority of the workers are Latinos. Seven local TV news stations showed up to do interviews and live reports, and a steady stream of activists arrived to bring donations of food and money and to plan solidarity actions.

Management claims that it can't continue operations because its main creditor, Bank of America (BoA), refuses to make any more loans to the company. After workers picketed BoA headquarters December 3, bank officials agreed to sit down with Republic management and UE to discuss the matter at a December 5 meeting arranged by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill), said UE organizer Leah Fried.

BoA had said that it couldn't discuss the matter with the union directly without written approval from Republic's management. But Republic representatives failed to show up at the meeting, and plant managers prepared to close the doors for good--violating the federal WARN Act that requires 60 days notice of a plant closure.

The workers decided this couldn't go unchallenged. "The company and Bank of America are throwing the ball to one another, and we're in the middle," said Vicente Rangel, a shop steward and former vice president of Local 1110.

Many workers had suspected the company was planning to go out of business--and perhaps restart operations elsewhere. Several said managers had removed both production and office equipment in recent days.

Furthermore, while inventory records indicated there were plenty of parts in the plant, workers on the production line found shortages. And the order books, while certainly down from the peak years of the housing boom, didn't square with management's claims of a total collapse. "Where did all those windows go?" one worker asked.

Workers were especially outraged that Bank of America, which recently received a bailout in taxpayer money, won't provide credit to Republic. "They get $25 billion from the government, and won't loan a few million to this company so workers can keep their jobs?" said Ricardo Caceres, who has worked at the plant for six years.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE MEMBERS of Local 1110 have a history of struggle. In 2004, they decertified the Central States Joint Board--a union notorious for corruption and sweetheart contracts with management--and brought in UE, a far more democratic organization.

In May of this year, Local 1110 mobilized for a contract by organizing a "practice" picket, and 70 workers used their lunch break to confront the boss with a petition listing their demands. The workers were able to turn back company's effort to win major concessions and won solid pay increases.Now, management is trying to get revenge by pocketing money that belongs to the workers.

UE officials and workers acknowledge that it will be difficult to stop the plant from closing. But they're determined to get the money owed to them--and they believe that by fighting, they can set an example for other workers facing layoffs and plant closures as the recession deepens.

Negotiations are set for Monday, December 8. Whatever happens, however, the workers have already sent a message to employers that if they violate workers rights and the law, they can expect a fight.

"This is a message to the workers of America," said Vicente Rangel, the shop steward. "If we stand together, we will prevail until justice is done, and we get what we're due."

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

What you can do

If you live in the Chicago area, come to a rally on Saturday, December 6, at 12 Noon at Republic Windows, 1333 N. Hickory in Chicago, on Goose Island. If negotiations with Bank of America fail to resolve the issue, there will be a picket of BoA's Chicago headquarters at 231 S. LaSalle on Tuesday, December 9 at 12 noon.

Members of Local 1110 need your support. Make checks payable to the UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, and mail to: 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607. Messages of support can be sent to [email protected] For more information, call UE at 312-829-8300.

At the Jobs with Justice Web site, you can send a message of protest to Bank of America (http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/).

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Revy]

Awesome. :thumbup1:

I have a checking account with Bank of America. Damn......:(

[Bilan]

As many as 240 union workers are tonight staging a sit-in at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors. They are members of the United Electrical Workers union.

ChiTown Daily News (http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/Workers_stage_sitin_over_money_owed_to_them,19471) is reporting:
Workers at Republic Windows and Doors today say they are not leaving the plant until they get “what is rightfully theirs.”
Workers arrived early this morning to stage a sit-in, refusing to leave until they receive pay that is mandated by federal law.
Company officials announced earlier this week they were unable to get $5 million in financing from the Bank of America, money the company needs to stay open.

http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/chicago-ue-workers-seize-plant-demand-share-of-the-bailout/ (http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/chicago-ue-workers-seize-plant-demand-share-of-the-bailout/)
http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/friday-night-at-republic-windows-and-doors/ (http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/friday-night-at-republic-windows-and-doors/)
http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/Republic_workers_say_theyre_not_leaving_without_pa y,19475 (http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/Republic_workers_say_theyre_not_leaving_without_pa y,19475)
http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/ (http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdnassets/assets/1450/gut.jpg

[which doctor]

hmm...it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The factory is literally only a bus ride down the road, maybe I'll check it out.

[More Fire for the People]

hmm...it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The factory is literally only a bus ride down the road, maybe I'll check it out.
Maybe? What the fuck. Get there, now.

[not_of_this_world]

This is what happened in Venezuela and the workers wound up running the plant and all made the same wage. It was beautiful but the pigs will break this up you can bet your ass on that one! We live in a police state now thanks to the laxity of the population!

[ckaihatsu]

[labor_action] For US-wide pickets at Bank of Am'ca to back UE plant seizure

A sister on an autoworkers list said it best: "Maybe it's starting!"

There's a Socialist Worker article making the rounds
(http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/06/republic-window-occupation) about a United Electrical workers occupation of a plant in Chicago after Bank of America shut off credit to the plant's owners, and the latter denied legally-mandated notice and severance pay.

The article mentioned that there will be a picket at Bank of America
in Chicago on Tuesday at noon if an agreement was not reached. I
think we should have pickets all around the country (hell, around
the world, if we can) at BoA offices or ATMs on Tuesday (although 5 pm
might be better so more working people can attend). And we should
publicize them ASAP so the companies know during negotiations on
Monday that the whole world is watching.

PS: Another article on the occupation
(http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/14091/) says the UE isn't just
talking about severance pay -- they say the company could remain open
if BoA provides funds, as window orders are still there.

In our Workers' Action Program, Socialist Action says: "If bankers
whose debts don't get 'deleveraged' refuse loans to businesses which
then shut down production, workers can demand the nationalization of
any company shutting down or cutting jobs or benefits as a result."
(http://www.socialistaction.org/pollack43.htm)

To which we can add that we should demand the government, which gave
OUR money to BoA, take back funds sufficient to keep Republic running
from what it gave the bank as part of the bailout (and workers would
keep close tabs on how the funds are used).

AP
-------------------------
Remember: Catch a new episode of "Live Wire" every Monday, Wednesday
and Friday at: http://andycomix.blogspot.com

[ckaihatsu]

Found at: http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/14091/


Workers occupy factory in Chicago


Author: John Bachtell


PWW photo by John Bachtell.


CHICAGO — Workers at Republic Windows and Doors in the Goose Island neighborhood began occupying the plant Friday morning Dec. 5 to regain pay for lost vacation days after the plant was abruptly closed.

They plan to continue the occupation until the results of the next round of negotiations with management on Dec. 8 are known.

Bank of America (BA) is chief investor and controls the day-to-day finances of Republic Windows and Doors, a manufacturer for the home construction market. BA refused to extend a line of credit and as a result the company was forced to close its doors December 5. Three hundred workers were thrown onto the street. This action came on the heels of a $25 billion emergency bailout of BA from the federal government.

On Dec. 3 100 Republic Windows workers, their families and supporters picketed BA Chicago headquarters on LaSalle Street. The workers, represented by United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) stretched a city block as they marched beneath the ornate bank columns and carried signs saying, “Billions for BA, $0 for workers” and “You got your bailout, we got sold out.”

According to Armando Robles, a maintenance employee and local union president, “Just weeks before Christmas we are told our factory will close in three days. Taxpayers gave Bank of America billions and they turn around and close our company. We will fight for a bailout for workers.”

The mostly Latino and African American workers are demanding at a minimum, the bank allow the company to pay worker vacation pay and other monies owned under WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act). BA instructed the company not to issue payments. In addition, the union is demanding the company comply with the requirement to give 60 days notice before closure of a workplace or 60 days pay in lieu of notice.

But the union believes the jobs can be saved. The company has said the closure is due to the deepening economic crisis and especially in the housing and construction industry. Orders have plummeted and according to the company, declining revenues would have ended in bankruptcy.

But according to a UE spokesperson, while the company’s new construction sales have suffered due to the slowdown, sales of replacement windows have remained steady. CEO Rich Gillman had just told the union that they company had customers willing to buy windows and they could stay in business if BA continued financing.

Observers say BA’s callousness is a clear example of the need for greater regulation of the bailouts being extended to Wall Street banks to prevent such outrageous acts of abuse.

Supporters can join a vigil Dec. 6 at noon and show their support for the workers by going to:

Republic Windows & Doors
1333 N. Hickory
On Goose Island,
near the intersection of Division & Clyborn.

Contact UE: [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2008/12/chicago-workers-occupy-plant.htm

Chicago: Workers occupy plant

By Stephanie Weiner

Chicago, IL - The cafeteria at Republic Windows Factory on the North West side of Chicago was filled with workers tonight, Dec. 5. In a militant action, they have taken over and occupied the block-long building still filled with expensive merchandise and equipment. The 200 workers have been told that their plant is closing but have not been paid by the guidelines set forth in the WARN Act. It is estimated that the workers are owed $1million. The courageous workers insist that they get paid before the assets are removed from the expansive plant. They are especially outraged that the very Bank of America that claims it can not pay the Republic workers is the bank that received $25 billion in the last U.S. bail out!

The mostly Latino employees, who are members of United Electrical workers, have worked at Republic - some for over 30 years - and are not even being compensated with continued health insurance or the holiday and sick pay already owed them. They are also legally due wages for 60 more days after the announced closing today.

Vicente Rangel, a United Electrical workers steward and a worker for 15 years in the maintenance division said tonight, "We are sending a message to all the workers in America. We will try to keep the fight and we ask for your support."

The workers chanted, "Sí se puede!" when they got news updates or solidarity visitors and made plans to stay up all night and prepare for a noon vigil on Saturday as well as a meeting with management and the bank representatives promised for Monday. As the word spread quickly today, plans were put in place for a Tuesday, Dec. 9 rally if their demands are not met.

__________________________________________________ ___
Fight Back News Service | www.fightbacknews.org

If you received this from somebody else, you can subscribe to Fight Back News Service at
http://www.fightbacknews.org/fbns/?p=subscribe&id=1



--
If you do not want to receive any more emails from Fight Back News Service visit this link

To update your preferences and to unsubscribe visit this link

Powered by PHPlist2.10.2, &copy tincan ltd

[ckaihatsu]

www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-workersoccupyfact,0,1928458.story
chicagotribune.com

Idled workers occupy factory in Chicago

By RUPA SHENOY

Associated Press Writer

11:06 AM CST, December 6, 2008

CHICAGO

Workers laid off from their jobs at a factory have occupied the building and are demanding assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay that they say they are owed.

About 200 employees of Republic Windows and Doors began their sit-in Friday, the last scheduled day of the plant's operation. On Saturday, about 50 workers could be seen through a window sitting on chairs and pallets on the factory floor. Reporters were asked to stay out of the plant's work area.

"We're going to stay here until we win justice," said Blanca Funes, 55, of Chicago, after occupying the building for several hours. Speaking in Spanish, Funes said she fears losing her home without the wages she feels she's owed. A 13-year employee of Republic, she estimated her family can make do for three months without her paycheck. Most of the factory's workers are Hispanic.

Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down.

Workers also were angered when company officials didn't show up for a meeting Friday that had been arranged by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, Fried said.

During the peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.

"We're doing something we haven't since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," Fried said.

Representatives of Republic Windows did not immediately respond Saturday to calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak said authorities were aware of the situation and officers were patrolling the area.

Crain's Chicago Business reported that the company's monthly sales had fallen to $2.9 million from $4 million during the past month. In a memo to the union, obtained by the business journal, Republic CEO Rich Gillman said the company had "no choice but to shut our doors."

Union officials said another meeting with the company is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Dust Bunnies]

This is a big step, kudos to the workers in that plant.

[ckaihatsu]

This is a big step, kudos to the workers in that plant.


Absolutely.

This is also just the beginning of the beginning. If the workers at Republic hang onto it long enough then they're simply running a business of their own together.

The point is to spread the occupations to the point where it becomes the *norm* in the economy -- like people of color in universities -- not the exception.


Chris






--


--
___

RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162

Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
community.webshots.com/user/ckaihatsu/

3D Design Communications - Let Your Design Do Your Footwork
ckaihatsu.elance.com

MySpace:
myspace.com/ckaihatsu

CouchSurfing:
tinyurl.com/yoh74u

[DancingLarry]

hmm...it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The factory is literally only a bus ride down the road, maybe I'll check it out.

Take a camcorder and get this shit up on YouTube stat!

[DancingLarry]

BTW UE is a good union. It got thrown out of the AFL-CIO back in the 50s for refusing to sell out its reds. That's why the business unionists created IUE.

[Oneironaut]

Some of the best news I've heard in awhile!

[ckaihatsu]

[labor_action] Pictures from the Chicago UE plant occupation

http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/2008/12/pictures-from-republic-windows.html

Friday, December 5, 2008

Pictures from Republic Windows Occupation...

Sorry for the quality, they are cell phone pics...

About pilsenprole...

Welcome to PilsenProle, the news blog created by educator, labor journalist/activist, producer of the Labor Express Radio program and proud Pilsenite Jerry Mead-Lucero. The purpose of this blog is the posting of print stories, photos and other materials produced by Jerry and others, relevant to concerns of the worker's movement broadly, and topics covered on the Labor Express Radio & the Labor Beat TV programs in particular. I will also indulge in a little amateur travel writing via this site.

Explanation of the name “pilsenprole” – Pilsen is a Mexican, immigrant, working-class community on Chicago’s Southside. Over the past 150 years, Pilsen has changed in regards to the composition of it’s immigrant population – from Bohemian to Polish to Mexican – but it has always been a working class immigrant community. From the 1877 Battle of the Viaduct, to the events of Haymarket, to the 1910 garment workers general strike, to the struggle against gentrification today, few neighborhoods in the country can claim such a long and illustrious history of class struggle. I have been a proud resident of Pilsen since May 2000. “Prole” (short for proletariat) is an homage to the 20th century’s greatest Journalist, George Orwell…“If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated…the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies.”

[zimmerwald1915]

Very nice. Let's hope they don't become isolated in the factory...

[Holden Caulfield]

hmm...it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The factory is literally only a bus ride down the road, maybe I'll check it out.

go down with a little camp stove and tea bags and milk,

[Dimentio]

Hope this spreads all around Chicago.

[Red October]

BTW UE is a good union. It got thrown out of the AFL-CIO back in the 50s for refusing to sell out its reds. That's why the business unionists created IUE.

UE is a pretty fantastic union, especially if you consider the rest of organized labor in America. They've been organizing public sector workers where I live and I'm friends with one of their organizers. They've got a few problems, but overall they're damn good. I hope the UE local near me starts some solidarity work I can help out with.

[Martin Blank]

go down with a little camp stove and tea bags and milk,

Coffee and donuts usually do the trick.

[Holden Caulfield]

Coffee and donuts usually do the trick.

i say potato you say potato

[RedScare]

Very good news. Let's hope this is the start of something big.

[Hiero]

I have heard the CPUSA has alot of incluence in the UE.

[ckaihatsu]

This is also just the beginning of the beginning. If the workers at Republic hang onto it long enough then they're simply running a business of their own together.

The point is to spread the occupations to the point where it becomes the *norm* in the economy -- like people of color in universities -- not the exception.


http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84872/index.php

Re: Chicago Workers Occupy Factory! Need Your Immediate Support!

07 Dec 2008

by John Baldridge

GET OUT THERE, PEOPLE! If you are just finding out about this, it's your chance to get to the factory and support this bold move for workers' rights!

Here, read my message about how factory occupations have happened elsewhere:

After the 2001 economic crash in Argentina, around 200 bankrupt and closed-down business were occupied and then taken over by their workers. Most of these workers formed cooperatives to manage the business without the boss, and run it themselves. Eventually, dozens of these "recovered" businesses were granted legal recognition by the government, which used eminent domain to transfer ownership from the original owners to the worker coops, giving a 20-year mortgage at favorable lending terms.

As it turns out, "recovered" businesses are doing rather well. They've discovered that the previous owners were pretty much unnecessary for running the business; ditto with top management. Most of the working people are paid at least as well as they were before the takeover, and many are getting paid more. In any case, it seems to be a good way to put a business back to work quickly, in a way that preserves peoples' jobs. Basically, the state settles the bankruptcy on its terms, in effect nationalizing the business, and then appoints the productive workers to run it. Perhaps the 20-year loan could be based on the amount of the outstanding credit settlement.

I've been in Argentina recently, and conducted interviews with workers at many of these businesses for the dissertation I am writing. I would love to make contact with someone among the Republic workers, and make sure they know about what's going on in Argentina. I could even share some Argentine contacts with recovered businesses, so they could swap notes. In any case, someone should let them know about this model for keeping a business from shutting down. A good lawyer and a sympathetic city council could make this happen here.

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84877/index.php

Laid-off workers furious as bank pulls Chicago plant's credit

CHICAGO (AFP) — Laid off workers were camped out at their abruptly shuttered factory on Saturday, demanding that the bank which cut off credit to the Chicago window maker free up some financing so they could be paid their final wages and benefits.

The sit-in began on Friday morning, just hours after the Labor Department reported that a stunning retrenchment cut 533,000 jobs from US payrolls in November, sending the nation's unemployment rate to a 15-year high.

The grim economic outlook was on the minds of the 300 workers whose were given just three days notice that Republic Windows & Doors was being forced to close.

"It's tough. It's really tough," said Apolinar Cabrena, 43, who had worked for the company for 17 years.

Cabrena's wife is pregnant and expects to deliver around Christmas. He's got a mortgage and two other children to worry about and is owed eight weeks of unused vacation pay and two months of severance.

"I know the economy is bad, not just for me but for everybody," Cabrena said after he stepped outside the factory to speak to AFP on Friday evening.

"I have a lot of hope that next year, with a new president, he'll make good decisions and invest money in industry so I can get another job as soon as possible."

Company officials told the plant's union that they were being forced to close because their main lender, Bank of America, had withdrawn their financing.

Federal law mandates that workers get paid for unused vacation time and are either given 60 days notice of a mass layoff or paid for that time.

But company officials said they could not make those payments because the bank was "basically controlling all expenditures at this point... and was not allowing it," said United Electrical union representative Leah Fried.

"There's a whole other level of shamefulness given the bailout (of financial institutions) and that Bank of America didn't extend credit as they were supposed to," Fried told AFP.

Fried said Republic Windows & Doors had been hard-hit by the downturn in the housing market but could likely have managed to keep the business afloat if their credit had not dried up.

"This is a company that's been around for 48 years. They've been through quite a few ups and downs in the housing market and they probably could have gotten through this, but Bank of America decided to cut off the financing despite the bailout they received (from the government) and now these people are out on the street."

Representatives from the company and Bank of America did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bank of America issued a statement to the local CBS news affiliate saying: "Neither Bank of America nor any other third-party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees."

After spending much of Friday chatting over pizza and coffee, the plant's 250 union members organized themselves into three shifts to keep the building occupied until a settlement is reached.

"We're doing this for the other working people in the country," said machine operator Ron Bender, who had worked for the company for 14 years.

"What's happened to us can happen to anyone - they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay."

Company officials told the union they would not try to eject them from the plant and said they would attend a meeting on Monday afternoon with the union, the bank and US Representative Luis Gutierrez to try to hammer out a deal.

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84874/index.php

Details on Vigil at Republic Windows factory occupation

Clergy and community to hold prayer vigil for workers occupying Republic Windows Factory
WHO: Clergy and Community Members with workers occupying plant

WHERE: Republic Windows, 1333 N Hickory Ave (on Goose Island , near Division and Halsted) WHEN: Saturday, December 6 at 12:00 noon

The Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues is holding a prayer rally for the 200 workers who have been told that their plant is closing but have not been properly paid by the guidelines set forth in the WARN Act. It is estimated that the workers are owed $1,000,000.

On Wednesday the workers, members of the United Electrical Workers union, protested outside of Bank of America in downtown Chicago , chanting, “You got bailed out, we got sold out.” With Republic Windows not able to pay its workers, Bank of America apparently now owns the plant, filled with inventory and expensive equipment. The workers insist that they get paid before the assets are removed from the expansive plant.

As a sign of solidarity with the workers, religious and community leaders will lead prayers and speak about the workers’ rights to just compensation and fair treatment in the midst of these harsh economic times.

For Further Information:
Rev. CJ.. Hawking: 773-937-1824; cjhawking (at) aol.com
Adam Kader: 773-937-1826; akader (at) cicwi.org

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84871/index.php

All out to support sit-down strike this weekend

As the articles will tell you , the Sit-Down strike is still going strong! The workers won't leave until they get their rightful compensation. They need your support!
Come out any time this weekend to support the resistance!
For more information contact Mark of the UE at 773 405 3022

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84870/index.php

Sit-In Continues at Chicago Window Plant

1333 N. Hickory, Goose Island Chicago. Come support the action. Continuing through the night.

Union officials announced this afternoon that Bank of America has agreed to meet with them to discuss workers concerns about the closing of Republic Windows and Doors.

"They are ready to meet with the company and the union and a representative from Luis Gutierrez's office in order to try to come to some kind of resolution with the situation," says Mark Meinster of the United Electrical Workers, which represents the workers. "Everybody is trying to get a meeting today."

However, bank officials will only meet if Republic agrees to sign a waiver of confidentiality. Up until this point, Bank of America spokespeople have declined to comment on the situation because of the confidentiality agreement.

Workers are currently staging a sit-in at the company. They say they won't leave until they receive pay for vacation time they've earned, plus the 60 days pay due to them under the federal WARN Act. Meinster says the money owed the workers totals between $1 and 2 million.

Workers were also informed this morning by the company that their health insurance, which they were told would run until Dec. 15, was cut off last night. Workers say the company told them it was Bank of America's decision to end the insurance.

"People are really angry," says Melvin Maclin, worker and vice president of the local union. "A lot of people were hoping to go to the doctor one more time before the insurance was cut off, to get the medicines they need, but now they won't be able to."

Around 200 workers are gathered at the company today. Maclin says he thinks the sit in may last all day and into the night, or end with the company removing workers by force.

Earlier today, union officials said the company had told them boot the news media from the plant, threatening that the workers would not receive their paychecks if reporters remained. Workers were given their paychecks for last week around noon. Paychecks for this week will come out next Friday.

Republic's Cheif Operating Officer, Barry Dubin, did not respond to Daily News requests for comment.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-7, is doing all he can to arrange a meeting between all parties, according to a spokesman in his office.

Related

* http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/Bank_agrees_to_meet_with_union_and_workers,19474

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84872/index.php

Chicago Workers Occupy Factory! Need Your Immediate Support!

The workers of Republic Windows and Doors are right this minute occupying their factory, which was due to close at 10:00 AM Friday morning.

The workers are fighting for pay for their lost vacation days and for the 75 days notice that they are guaranteed under Illinois law. This is the first time in many years workers have taken the bold, militant strategy of occupying their place of work to demand justice. The plan to occupy the plant until they hear the results of the next round of negotiations Monday afternoon. THEY NEED TO KNOW THEY HAVE OUR SUPPORT!!!

A prayer vigil has been planned for 12:00 Noon tomorrow. Please attend. BUT WE SHOULD ORGANIZE A CONSTANT PRESENCE OF COMMUNITY MEMBERS PICKETING OUTSIDE THE FACTORY! BRING FOOD AND COFFEE FOR THE WORKERS. It is our presence and the press that is the workers best defense against the police raiding the factory.

These workers are fighting for all of us!!! As the economic crisis deepens we need to launch a working class fight back. These workers are the starting point and deserve our full support.

Go to:

Republic Windows & Doors
1333 N. Hickory
On Goose Island, near the intersection of Division & Clyborn

Feel free to call me for more info… (312) 502-7867 - Jerry Mead-Lucero
[ pilsenprole.blogspot.com/ ]

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/labor-action-chicago-t96280/index.html

[bellyscratch]

Brilliant, I really hope this can spread and cause some trouble for a few more companies :)

[kollontai]

This is beautiful. If it continues, I'd be willing to come up from Memphis. Let's hope this spreads, as I am sure these mass layoffs are happening everywhere in spite of our billions going to the banks. Wonder if it'll continue through Christmas.

[Martin Blank]

Thread from Politics moved and merged with thread in Workers Struggles.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The biggest problem is that their not trying to seize the factory or spread the struggle, under the misleadership of union bureaucracy of course. They're just holding the factory as a bargaining chip to get their pay. They're not trying to continue production or take ownership of it. They're not encouraging others to seize their workplaces as well.

The UE has a militant history, but let's not kid ourselves. Our job as communists shouldn't be just to cheerlead this action, but to use history as a guide and point out the way forward. This action is militant and can lead to something bigger, but work needs to be done in the immediate period.

[Labor Shall Rule]

This is great news - as a reporter said, this is "a sign of the times".

The United Electric Worker's is indeed more 'militant'. There are different social strands of union consciousness, and the prevalent one today is still "business unionism" and it's bastard variant "service unionism." It says that unions and workers are separate, and that they exist to provide services (such as - training), which is self-defeating to the core. The UE are a 'rank-in-file' union though, meaning that they believe that the only way workers can have power is through their own activity. This means that workers can collectively make change through self-activity, and are able to acquire concepts of the political world that surrounds them. It makes 'socialist' ideas more concrete through their own experience.

I think activists need to point out that it was not Republic workers that caused the crisis in the industry, and that they should not have to pay for management's mistakes. The changing level of militancy makes it more reasonable to engage workers in struggle that takes it 'above' the typical reformist demands.

[redSHARP]

great stuff! I watched CNN and there was actual positve things said about it! i really hope this becomes a nation wide thing! i dont think even the pigs would do anything violent to break it up; most politicians and citizens are supporting the strike. but only time will tell

[RedScare]

I hope the local socialists are very active at the moment.

[Pawn Power]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im7bCPXxWVU

[ckaihatsu]

SUPPORT THE WORKERS' OCCUPATION OF THE REPUBLIC WINDOWS AND DOORS PLANT IN CHICAGO!

During the week of December 8-13
Organize Protests in Front of Your Local Bank of America Office or Building


Support the Demands of the Republic Windows and Doors Workers:
--Management Must Meet with the Workers
--Workers Must Receive 60 Days Full Pay
--No Repression Against the Workers; No Attempts to Remove, Arrest or Charge Them

"We are sending a message to all the workers in America. We will try to keep up the fight and we ask for your support."
Vincente Rangel, United Electrical Workers' Steward and participant in the occupation

Endorse at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/repubwindowendorse.shtml
List Local Action at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/repubwindowvolorgcent.shtml
View Local Actions here
Donate to Bail Out the People Movement at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml

About 250 employees of Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago, IL began an occupation of the plant on Friday, Dec. 5, the last scheduled day of the plant's operation. The workers, members of the United Electrical Workers Union Local 1110, were not given the legally mandated 60-day prior notification of the plant´s closing; also the plant´s management and owners did not show up to a meeting with the workers scheduled for Dec. 5.

The workers decided to occupy the plant. They have vowed to stay in the plant until they receive, at the very least, 60 days pay. The owners say that they had to close because Bank of America refused to extend them any more credit. The Bank of America has received hundreds of billions of dollars over the past three months in bailout money from the government.

These workers, who are overwhelmingly [email protected] immigrants, have taken a courageous stand by putting their bodies on the line in their fight for the right to feed their families and to be treated with respect and dignity like all human beings. In a way, they are fighting for the rights of all workers who are under attack, whether they are restaurant workers, public employees or auto workers fighting to hold on to their jobs and union.

We must stand with them.

To all--no matter what your circumstances are--who are outraged over mass layoffs, home foreclosures and are watching the government spend literally trillions of dollars to bail out banks while doing nothing to stop the massive layoffs and evictions that are beating down working and poor people, take a stand in solidarity with these workers in Chicago. You could be next.

Jobs at a living wage are a right!

An appeal issued by Bail Out the People Movement

Dec. 7, 2008

Endorse at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/repubwindowendorse.shtml
List Local Action at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/repubwindowvolorgcent.shtml
Donate to Bail Out the People Movement at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml

Local Actions:

Chicago:
Sun, Dec 7, 10:30 AM Jessie Jackson and Rainbow PUSH deliver turkeys to workers occupying Republic Windows and Doors factory, 1333 N Hickory st. (near corner of Halsted and Division)
Monday, Dec 8th, 12 noon - Press Conference before UE workers meet with Bank of America and company executives. Supports welcome, bring food and monetary donations.
Tuesday, Dec 9th, 12 noon - Solidarity action at Bank of America, 231 S. LaSalle, Chicago, IL

Charlotte, NC:
Monday, Dec 8th, 12 Noon - Picket at Bank of American national Headquarters to support Republic workers. Corner of Trade St and Tryon in downtown Charlotte. Organized by UE local 150. call Dante Strobino at 919-539-2051 for more info

Detroit, MI:
Wednesday, Dec 10 12:00 noon - PROTEST RALLY, WEDS., DEC. 10, 12:00 NOON - BANK OF AMERICA, Guardian Building, Congress at Griswold, downtown Detroit

additional listings will be posted at BailOutPeople.org as quickly as we get them.

Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: [email protected]



_______________________________________________

You are subscribed as [email protected]

Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
[email protected]

To unsubscribe [email protected]

Subscribing and unsubscribing can also be done on the Web at
http://www.organizerweb.com/mailman/listinfo/action.news

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.socialistappeal.org/content/view/648/71/

Workers Occupy Chicago Factory

Written by David May

Sunday, 07 December 2008

Beginning Friday, around 300 workers at the Republic Window & Door factory in Chicago have occupied the plant demanding severance and back-pay owed by the company. For the first time since the birth of the CIO union federation in the 1930s, U.S. workers are occupying their workplace. As the bosses push to place the burden of the failing economy on workers' shoulders, the class struggle is back on the agenda in the U.S.

The 300 mostly Latino members of the United Electrical Workers union began the occupation on the last scheduled day of operations before the bosses would close the factory. The company gave the workers less than 60 days notice of the closure, in violation of federal labor laws. The company reported that its monthly earnings had dropped by around 25% to $2.9 million. But the company continued filling orders through the last scheduled day of operation, which gave workers little room to believe that the factory needed to close its doors.Republic Window and Door

Republic management told workers that it was necessary to close the factory in order to get loans from its main creditor, Bank of America. UE workers picketed the Bank's Chicago headquarters on December 3rd. Despite pledges from the bank and Republic management for a meeting on Friday with the UE local 1110 to discuss severance and other issues, this meeting was sabotaged when Republic management failed to show up. Workers replied by occupying the factory.

Bank of America was one of the many large banks to get a part of the gigantic $700 billion bailout package approved by the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress in October. It was also supported by both Barack Obama and John McCain. Yet despite getting billions from the taxpayers, the vast majority of whom are working class , the bankers refuse to use public money for anything other than private gain. This is a painful reality of capitalism!

The other side to this reality is that it is not possible to get any meaningful concessions from the bosses, even something as basic as severance pay, except through the class struggle. We have to ask, if Bank of America is being "fueled" with public money, why is there not public ownership? If Republic is getting public assistance, this money should be used to keep the factory open and workers in their jobs. If there is no room for the bosses to continue making a profit, place the factory under public ownership and democratic workers control, send the bosses packing without compensation and remove the profit motive. In the meantime, the only way UE workers will receive the severance and back pay owed to them is through maintaining the occupation until management and Bank of America relent. To do this, UE workers need the full support of the wider labor movement.

This sit-in occupation of the factory is an example for millions of other workers across the U.S. who are facing a growing wave of layoffs, closures, pay and benefit cuts. Solidarity rallies have already been organized in the Chicago area. The AFL-CIO and Change to Win union federations should now mobilize the labor movement on a national scale to support the Republic workers. An injury to one is an injury to all!

The Workers International League joins others in solidarity with UE local 1110. We ask our readers and supporters to email solidarity letters to UE Local 1110, and to call on our unions to pass solidarity resolutions and to organize solidarity actions.

Solidarity messages can be sent to UE Local 1110 at: [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

Chicago workers occupy their factory on Sunday night's episode of Labor Express Radio

Republic Windows & Doors workers occupy their factory and demand justice on tonight's episode of Labor Express Radio

For months on Labor Express we have discussed the economic crisis and what it means for working people. We have forecast a long period of high unemployment and desperation for millions of American workers. But now, a group of factory workers in Chicago are pointing the way forward and providing an example of how workers can fight back. The workers of Republic Windows & Doors near downtown Chicago were informed last Tuesday that their factory was closing at 10:00 AM on Friday morning. But rather than accept their fate in silence, the workers at Republic, members of UE Local 1110, told their management they were not leaving the factory grounds until they received payment for the 75 days notice the company is obligated to provide under Illinois state law and pay for any accrued vacation time. This is the first factory occupation by workers in the United States in many decades. At this moment, two days after the managers had planned to shut the company's doors for good, the workers continue to occupy the plant and are receiving around the clock support from hundreds of members of the labor and social justice communities.

Tune in tonight to hear about this historic, ongoing struggle directly from the mouths of the workers and organizers of UE Local 1110.

Listen live on the radio at 7:00 PM on 88.7 FM
SUNDAY, DEC. 7

Listen live via the web at wluw.org


LISTEN TO...
LABOR EXPRESS
CHICAGO'S ONLY LABOR NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS RADIO PROGRAM
NEWS FOR WORKING PEOPLE - BY WORKING PEOPLE
EVERY SUNDAY AT 7:00 P.M. ON 88.7 F.M. OR LIVE ON THE WEB AT WWW.WLUW.ORG
Check out our website at... WWW.LABOREXPRESS.ORG

[Seven Stars]

The biggest problem is that their not trying to seize the factory or spread the struggle, under the misleadership of union bureaucracy of course. They're just holding the factory as a bargaining chip to get their pay. They're not trying to continue production or take ownership of it. They're not encouraging others to seize their workplaces as well.

The UE has a militant history, but let's not kid ourselves. Our job as communists shouldn't be just to cheerlead this action, but to use history as a guide and point out the way forward. This action is militant and can lead to something bigger, but work needs to be done in the immediate period.

Exactly, they are only asking for their pay, not ownership of the factory. The Democrats have already taken this over with the local Dem congressman and Jesse Jackson being the main speakers at these rallies. Socialists need to take this over and hold on to this factory and encourge workers everywhere to do the same. But we currently do not have the strength to do so, people need go out and organize workers to join the IWW and similar unions.

[wasteman]

We get more comrades to the factories in chicago we could get something stiring

[KurtFF8]

The biggest problem is that their not trying to seize the factory or spread the struggle, under the misleadership of union bureaucracy of course. They're just holding the factory as a bargaining chip to get their pay. They're not trying to continue production or take ownership of it. They're not encouraging others to seize their workplaces as well.

The UE has a militant history, but let's not kid ourselves. Our job as communists shouldn't be just to cheerlead this action, but to use history as a guide and point out the way forward. This action is militant and can lead to something bigger, but work needs to be done in the immediate period.

(This is what I posted at SE, it's relevant to what you said here though)

This is a great action, it will be interesting to see where it goes. I saw in the CNN Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWhv6YL0rM) that some had overt socialist signs during their outside protest so I would imagine that talk of moving the factory to become worker owned isn't off the table amongst the workers right now (at least I would hope so)

[KurtFF8]

Exactly, they are only asking for their pay, not ownership of the factory. The Democrats have already taken this over with the local Dem congressman and Jesse Jackson being the main speakers at these rallies. Socialists need to take this over and hold on to this factory and encourge workers everywhere to do the same. But we currently do not have the strength to do so, people need go out and organize workers to join the IWW and similar unions.

(Sorry for the double post here, I just saw this comment).

I noticed the congressman too, I'm impressed in how quick the Democratic party was to see this as an opportunity to co-opt the struggle. Hopefully the workers see this for what it is and resist this co-optation. As it's been pointed out, there's much leftist influence in this union and we don't have to worry about whether they are aware of this of course.

[Guerrilla22]

Apparently the IWW is already down there.

[ckaihatsu]

This is a big email. Lots of important info coming through.

3 major things have come out in favor of the occupying workers!
(all are either linked, or copied/pasted below)

1) Major left-wing magazine THE NATION has come out in favor of the workers!

2) Obama, in a public statement, has come out in favor of the workers!

3) And even CNN (the epitome of corporate media) has had to do a favorable
story on the occupying workers!
YOUTUBE LINK TO THE STORY AT THE BOTTOM!

Solidarity!

[...]

----------------------------------------------------

The Nation
Making a new New Deal: Sitdown Strike in Chicago

posted by JOHN NICHOLS on 12/07/2008 @ 10:42am

Much has been made about the prospect that Barack Obama's presidency might, due to economic necessity and the president-elect's interventionist inclinations, be a reprise of the New Deal era.

But there will be no "new New Deal" if Americans simply look to Obama to lead them out of the domestic quagmire into which Bill Clinton and George Bush led the country with a toxic blend of free-trade absolutism, banking deregulation and disdain for industrial policy. Just as Roosevelt needed mass movements and militancy as an excuse to talk Washington stalwarts into accepting radical shifts in the economic order, so Obama will need to be able to point to some turbulence at the grassroots.

And so he may have it.

After the Bank of America -- a $25-billion recipient of Bailout Czar Hank Paulson's "Wall Street First" largesse -- cut off operating credit to the Republic Windows and Doors company, executives of the firm announced Friday that they were shutting its factory in Chicago.

Instead of going home to a dismal Holiday season like hundreds of thousands of other working Americans who have fallen victim to the corporate "reduction-in-force" frenzy of recent weeks -- which has seen suddenly-secure banks pocket federal dollars rather than loosen up credit -- the Republic workers occupied the factory where many of them had worked for decades.

Members of United Electrical Workers Local 1110, which represents 260 Republic workers, are conducting the contemporary equivalent of the 1930s sit-down strikes that led to the rapid expansion of union recognition nationwide and empowered the Roosevelt administration to enact more equitable labor laws. And, just as in the thirties, they are objecting to policies that put banks ahead of workers; stickers worn by the UE sit-down strikers read: "You got bailed out, we got sold out."

"We're going to stay here until we win justice," says Blanca Funes, 55, of Chicago, who was one of the UE members occupying the Republic factory over the weekend for several hours.

Most of Republic workers are Hispanic and they want answers from the Bank of America and the company.

According to the UE, the workers hope "to force the company and its main creditor to meet their obligations to the workers."

"Their goal is to at least get the compensation that workers are owed; they also seek the resumption of operations at the plant," explains the union. "All 260 members of the local were laid off Friday in a sudden plant closing, brought on by Bank of America cutting off operating credit to the company. The bank even refused to authorize the release of money to Republic needed to pay workers their earned vacation pay, and compensation they are owed under the federal WARN Act because they were not given the legally-required notice that the plant was about to close."

UE is an independent union that is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, although its roots go back to the militant labor organizing of the 1930s that gave rise to the groundbreaking Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Some of the solidarity of old has been on display in Chicago this weekend, as UE members have been supported by unions that are affiliated with both the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition of major unions.

Recognizing the absurdity of taxpayer-funded bailouts that enrich banks that in turn cut credit for American manufacturers, Richard Berg, president of Chicago's powerful Teamsters Local 743, said. "If this bailout should go to anything, it should go to the workers of this country."

Invoking Chicago's rich record of labor struggle -- from the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century to the steel industry organizing of the 1930s -- American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 regional director Larry Spivack hailed its latest expression.

"The history of workers is built on issues like this here today," Spivack told union members at the plant.

Spivack's right.

But it is not just the history of workers that turns on struggles such as this. It is the history of presidents and the United States.

Barack Obama will not be the new FDR, and this coming period will not see a "new New Deal" unless labor is inspired to fight once more to keep workers on the job, plants operating and American manufacturing industries muscular enough to survive in the global market. Then, the proper demands can be made on an Obama administration to back up not just unions but their expanding membership.

If the right history of this time is written, it will be said that the new New Deal began in Chicago -- not just because Obama comes from the city but because workers there chose to stand up by sitting down.

For updates on developments in Chicago, UE website.

Share this article

Comments (8)

Copyright © 2008 The Nation

------------------------------------------

Obama defends Republic Windows and Doors workers

Recommend (6) Comments
December 7, 2008
BY ABDON PALLASCH Sun-Times Political Reporter
President-elect Barack Obama put himself on the side of the workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory Sunday:

"When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right," Obama said Sunday at a news conference announcing his new Veterans Affairs director. "What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy.

"When you have a financial system that is shaky, credit contracts. Businesses large and small start cutting back on their plants and equipment and their workforces. That's why it's so important for us to maintain a strong financial system. But it's also important for us to make sure that the plans and programs that we design aren't just targeted at maintaining the solvency of banks, but they are designed to get money out the doors and to help people on Main Street. So, number one, I think that these workers, if they have earned their benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments.

"Number two, I think it is important for us to make sure that, moving forward, any economic plan we put in place helps businesses to meet payroll so we are not seeing these kinds of circumstances again,'' he said. "Have we done everything that we can to make sure credit is flowing to businesses and to families, and to students who are trying to get loans? And to homeowners who have been making payments on their homes but are still finding their property values so depressed that it becomes very difficult for them to make the mortgage payments?

"That's where the rubber hits the road and that's going to be the central focus of my administration."

-----------------------

CNN Clip
Laid Off Workers Occupy a Factory in Chicago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWhv6YL0rM

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/chic-d08.shtml


Chicago workers occupy plant set to close


By Clement Daly, Christina Betinis and Alexander Fangmann
8 December 2008

In a sign of the mounting social tensions building up in the United States, about 200 recently laid-off workers at Republic Windows and Doors, a Chicago window manufacturer, have occupied their factory.

Workers have not only lost their jobs, but have lost their benefits as well, including health care for themselves and their families. Their main demand is that the company pay them for unused vacation time, along with 60 days severance pay, as required under federal law.

Workers were informed last Tuesday that Friday, December 5, would be the last day of production. The company claimed that operations had to end immediately because Bank of America had withdrawn its line of credit.

Although Republic has placed the blame for the closing solely on Bank of America’s decision to stop loaning the company money, management had known about the closure for at least a few weeks. Workers became suspicious as materials listed in the inventory were nowhere to be found. Others told of the company moving equipment and supplies out of the factory in the middle of the night with the lights off.

With the slump in the housing market, Republic saw its monthly sales fall from $4 million to $2.9 million over the last month alone. CEO Rich Gillman, in a letter to the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, notifying the union of the plant closure, stated, “Our continuing to stay in business will only result in losing more money.”

For their part, Bank of America, in a statement released to the local CBS new station, said, “Neither Bank of America nor any other third-party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees.” Bank of America has been the beneficiary of at least $25 billion in government bailout money over the past several months, supposedly to free up the credit markets.

Republic occupation

The workers’ action in carrying out the occupation of the factory is an expression of anger at the callous treatment shown by Republic. Workers invited a World Socialist Web Site reporting team inside the plant to discuss their struggle.

Lalo Muñoz told the WSWS, “I’ve been working over here for 24 years … and one day they decide to close the doors down and say ‘nada,’ bye bye, this is it.”

Muñoz continued, “Most of the employees have a lot of years working for the company. So the company, they just threw us on the streets, and I don’t see any good reason.”

The workers also expressed a determination to continue the occupation until their demands were met. One worker, Dagoberto, indicated they were willing to wait “as long as it takes.”

Under these conditions, the workers at Republic are striving to find some way to defend their interests, their jobs, and their families. Democratic politicians, on the other hand, working closely with the UE trade union, Republic Windows and Doors, and Bank of America, are seeking to contain the outburst of anger and quickly smother it.

US Representative Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, has moved in to contain the struggle. He made a statement on Saturday, declaring, “All the company had to do was 60 days ago call the workers together and have an orderly, right, transparent closing of the plant… Had they done that, we would not be here right now.”

The company, the bank and the union have agreed to meet on Monday. Carl Rosen, a union leader, said “there is a will on all sides to try to work something out.”

On Sunday, the workers were also visited by the Jesse Jackson, who has a long history of diverting workers’ struggles into the dead end of Democratic Party politics. Jackson is reportedly attempting to pressure Bank of America to reinstate Republic’s line of credit for a sufficient period of time to allow some settlement to be reached.

Even if an agreement is worked out between the Democrats, the companies, and the UE, it will be based on the shutdown of the company and some limited arrangement involving severance. It will still leave all the workers without work and benefits in an economic environment in which there are no decent jobs to be found.

The occupation of Republic has been met with a nervous reaction from the political establishment. President-elect Barack Obama, a former state senator from Chicago, was asked his opinion at a press conference on Sunday. “When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right,” he insisted.

In reality, Obama’s policy has been to fully support the efforts by Wall Street to respond to the economic crisis with a massive attack on the working class. He actively campaigned for the multibillion-dollar bailout of the banks and is currently demanding that autoworkers accept cuts in wages and benefits as part of any deal to provide loans to the auto companies.

The situation confronting the workers at Republic is hardly unique. It is being repeated throughout the Chicago area, where there are thousands of factories like Republic, and across the country. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley warned recently of massive layoffs in the city for the remainder of this year and into 2009: “We’re talking huge numbers of permanent layoffs for people in the economy.”

Payrolls in the US shrank by more than half a million in November alone, a figure that will escalate in the coming months.

The occupation of Republic raises basic political and social questions: Who should control the factories and other productive forces, and in whose interests should they be run? Why should these productive forces, upon which the lives of millions of workers depend, be at the mercy of banks and corporate executives, and operated on the basis of private profit and individual wealth accumulation?

As the world economy enters the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, workers will have to confront a basic question—capitalism or socialism? The issue is not one of appealing to the employers for the best deal in exchange for the loss of jobs, but of taking control of the factories and the economy as a whole, and running them in the interests of social need.

About the WSWS | Contact Us | Privacy Statement | Top of page

Copyright © 1998-2008 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[Andres Marcos]

I wish those workers the best of luck in fighting for their rights! Its up to all Revolutionary and progressive minded people to agitate for more of these but simultaneously pushing for total seizure of factories like these.

[ckaihatsu]

http://fightbacknews.org/2008/12/support-grows-for-republic-window-occupation.htm

Support Grows for Republic Windows Occupation

By Stephanie Weiner

Chicago, IL - Saturday, Dec. 6 brought more inspiration from workers at Republic Windows and Doors who are occupying their plant in Chicago. The workers' union, Local 1110 of the United Electrical workers (UE), held a rally at noon outside the plant doors. By then, the workers' militant action had already become international news.

Lalo Muñoz, a worker in the plant for 34 years spoke to the rally and explained that they had just been given notice on Tuesday that the plant would close Friday. The company had no plans to pay them the 75 days pay required in the Illinois WARN Act, nor their sick pay or vacation pay, and their health insurance would end immediately. Behind him were other occupying workers with blankets wrapped around them to protect them from the below zero temperatures.

Reverend CJ Hawking from the Interfaith Committee on Workers' Issues called up speaker after speaker to express the importance of the plant occupation for all workers across the U.S. Teamsters Local 743 President Richard Berg, AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Larry Spivak, SEIU Local 73 executive board member Joe Iosbaker, Michelle Aymold, an officer with the Graduate Employees Organization at UIC, Moises Zavala from UFCW, Martin Unzueta from The Chicago Workers Collaborative and Jobs with Justice director James Thindwa called these 260 workers true heroes.

Leaders from the United Electrical workers, Carl Rosen and Leah Fried, explained that the workers were told that Bank of America would not loan the company money. Bank of America denied the loan despite the $25 billion taxpayer bailout the bank had recently received. The 200 person crowd assembled on hours notice chanted, "You got bailed out, we got sold out!"

By the end of the rally, Congressman Luis Gutierrez promised to stick with them until they got justice. People left with concrete plans to return to the 1333 N Hickory Street factory with food, supplies, money, endorsements and ready to get more people for the planned Monday and Tuesday events.

Local 1110 President Armando Robles and his family spent the late afternoon explaining to Chicago activists the details and history of their struggle. As he walked into the packed room at the 17th annual People's Thanksgiving fundraising dinner for Fight Back! newspaper, the ecstatic crowd chanted "Si se puede!"

The room included people from the disability rights group Access Living, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Southside Together Organized for Power, Sector Latino, the activist fan club of the Chicago Fire, SDS, Palestine Solidarity Group, National Lawyers Guild, Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, and even the staff of the Venezuelan Consulate.

The crowd made it clear that the workers' action on Friday had inspired folks far beyond the traditional labor movement. The fundraising bags circulating the room were filled as people came forward to put in $100 donations. After the event a group of 25 people drove to the factory to personally deliver the $1500 raised.

By late night the factory had numerous TV trucks parked outside and was busy with Mexican community members bringing in large silver pots of homemade soup through the barricaded front doors of the main plant filled with expensive equipment and merchandise. The workers had already developed their own food, housekeeping, security and media committees. Vicente Rangel, a union steward with 15 years in the plant, was on his way to a live CNN interview.

Next steps

Sunday morning, Rev. Jesse Jackson of Operation PUSH met with the workers in the plant cafeteria and stated his intention to press Bank of America to reinstate Republic's line of credit. UE has set up a website for this as well: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica

A labor rally will be held at the factory door on Monday, Dec. 8 at noon, called by Chicago Federation of Labor president Dennis Gannon and SEIU state council head, Tom Balanoff.

The next negotiations between the company, the bank, Local 1110 and Representative Gutierrez will take place on Monday, Dec. 8 at 4:00 pm. If the company does not agree to the workers' demands for justice, the occupation will continue. The workers will rally on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at noon in front of the Bank of America, 231 South LaSalle Street in Chicago.

__________________________________________________ ___
Fight Back News Service | www.fightbacknews.org

If you received this from somebody else, you can subscribe to Fight Back News Service at
http://www.fightbacknews.org/fbns/?p=subscribe&id=1



--
If you do not want to receive any more emails from Fight Back News Service visit this link

To update your preferences and to unsubscribe visit this link

[ckaihatsu]

[see link for links at the end of the article]


http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/08/rallying-point-for-labor

A Rallying Point for Labor

ANALYSIS: LEE SUSTAR

Lee Sustar reports from Chicago on how the struggle at Republic Windows & Doors took shape.

December 8, 2008

A FACTORY occupation in Chicago that began as a show of defiance by 250 workers has been transformed into a focus of national and international labor solidarity.

Grassroots activists, rank-and-file union members, labor leaders, members of Congress and Rev. Jesse Jackson have all come to Republic Windows & Doors factory just north and west of the city's downtown to show their support for the overwhelmingly Latino workforce.

In a matter of a few days, news of this fight has spread far and wide--even gaining the attention of President-elect Barack Obama, who declared that the workers' struggle was just.

The occupation of the Republic factory began December 5 when workers on the afternoon shift voted to stay in the plant rather than accept a shutdown on just three days' notice--and without the vacation pay or severance money mandated under federal and state law.

The workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, were prepared to be arrested to make a statement about the Republic owners' violation of the law--and about the refusal of the company's main creditor, Bank of America (BoA), either to extend credit to the company to keep it operating or to make good on management's obligations to workers.

Republic workers are angry that BoA received $25 billion from the U.S. government as part of the Wall Street bailout--taxpayer money handed over to banks specifically to stimulate lending. Instead, the bank's Chicago managers were sitting on the money while Republic prepared to toss workers into the street and cut off their health insurance.

As a result, workers said, the decision to occupy was an easy one--whatever the consequences. Suddenly, an American factory occupation--something usually relegated to dusty labor history books about the 1930s and nostalgic speeches at union conventions--was a reality.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IF REPUBLIC'S owners considered calling the cops to evict the workers, they perhaps thought the better of it given their own obvious violation of the law.

Within a few hours, said UE International Representative Mark Meinster, the company reached an "understanding" with the union: Workers would keep the plant clean and safe, and a handful of company security guards would stay away from the cafeteria where the workers have set themselves up.

Workers have another very practical reason for guarding the plant--to make sure that management would no longer be able to move out critical equipment. In recent weeks, important and expensive gear had disappeared--including brand new presses that showed up on the loading dock one day, but were never installed.

"They said we were cross-docking," said Local 1110 Vice President Melvin Maclin, referring to the practice of taking delivery of items and shipping it out the same day. "In more than 20 years, they've never cross-docked." Maclin and other workers suspect that the owners are either selling off equipment or preparing to restart production in a separate, nonunion company--a practice perfected in the trucking industry in the late 1980s and adopted by other employers since.

Republic workers were determined it would not happen this time--not without a fight.

Hours into the occupation on Friday evening, local labor and immigrant rights activists began turning up at the plant's entrance with bags of takeout fried chicken, coffee and soda. Others who rushed over without stopping for food dug into their wallets instead, handing cash to union organizers to get more supplies. Meanwhile, more than a half-dozen TV news vans crowded the street outside as reporters prepared to do live broadcasts.

E-mail alerts, text messages and reports from the mainstream and independent media circulated around Chicago to promote a vigil to be held at Noon the next day. At the appointed hour, there were more than 300 union members and supporters on hand, as prayers gave way to an exuberant solidarity rally and fundraiser.

Rev. C.J. Hawking of the Chicago-based Interfaith Worker Justice committee led prayers--and revved up the crowd with her fiery pro-worker message. Several Republic workers spoke, explaining to the crowd why they decided to draw the line.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who had tried to broker a meeting between Republic management, BoA and the union--the owners didn't show--was the featured speaker.

"Somebody said to me, 'Those windows don't belong to them. What do you mean they're staying with them?'" Gutierrez told the crowd. "It seems to me that it was [the workers'] labor that put together those windows. It was their creativity, it was their work, their commitment to quality that made this company successful...Those windows belong to the workers until they are paid for."

Veterans of other labor struggles spoke--such as Rich Berg, president of Teamsters Local 743, who took office earlier this year after a long fight for democracy in a union notorious for corruption. Other speakers included James Thindwa, executive director of Chicago Jobs with Justice, and Jesse Sharkey, a delegate in the Chicago Teachers Union and member of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), a union reform group. UE Western Region President Carl Rosen closed out the rally.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BY THAT afternoon, the Republic occupation was international news. The mainstream media, usually clueless where labor issues are concerned, got the essentials across: BoA has $25 billion of taxpayer money but it wants to cut off credit to a viable company and toss more than 250 workers on the streets.

Sunday morning saw Jesse Jackson bring 200 turkeys to workers as UE staff set up a food distribution system. "These workers deserve their wages, deserve fair notice, deserve health security," Jackson said at a press conference. "This may be the beginning of [a] long struggle of worker resistance, finally." U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky also arrived to tour the plant and pledge her support.

Barack Obama felt compelled to address the Republic struggle at his own press conference. "The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned," Obama said. "I think they're absolutely right, and understand that what's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."

While the political figures have dominated the media's attention, the crowded foyer of the plant has become a rolling solidarity meeting involving union members, social movement activists and students.

On Sunday, a young Chicago bus driver and union activist was there to show support--and make activists aware of the Chicago Transit Authority's attempts to eliminate mechanics' jobs.

Rich De Vries, business agent for Teamsters Local 705, visited the plant, as did Gerald Colby, president of the National Writers Union, who came as part of a delegation from the U.S. Labor Against the War national leadership meeting, held just outside Chicago over the weekend. "This struggle shows that working people are not going to be pushed around--that they are going to stand up for their rights--and that they have rights at the point of production," Colby said.

James Thindwa of Jobs with Justice made a similar point. "This is the end of an era in which corporate greed is the rule," he said. "This is the start of something new."



------------------
What you can do

If you live in the Chicago area, there will be a picket of Bank of America's Chicago headquarters at 231 S. LaSalle on Wednesday, December 9 at 12 noon (unless negotiations resolve the dispute before then).

Read updates from the UE about the battle at Republic on the union's Web site. You can send a message of solidarity from the Web site, or by e-mail to [email protected] For more information, call UE at 312-829-8300.

The UE is appealing for financial support for the Republic workers. You can contribute via PayPal from the UE home page--see the box on the right. You can also send checks, made payable to the UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, to: 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607.

At the Jobs with Justice Web site, you can send a message of protest to Bank of America.

[audiored]

How shocking it is a scum sucking bank that just got billions of public money that is screwing these workers.

[manic expression]

How shocking it is a scum sucking bank that just got billions of public money that is screwing these workers.
And it's equally ironic that Obama is offering empty lip-service to the workers even though he completely supported the entire bailout policy in the first place.

[cyu]

Exactly, they are only asking for their pay, not ownership of the factory. The Democrats have already taken this over with the local Dem congressman and Jesse Jackson being the main speakers at these rallies. Socialists need to take this over and hold on to this factory and encourge workers everywhere to do the same. But we currently do not have the strength to do so, people need go out and organize workers to join the IWW and similar unions.

Agreed, but I think it is important that people like Jackson, Obama, and other Dems voice their support - this tends to pull in more "mainstream Americans" to the view that these people deserve to be protected. If they didn't have support even from the Dems, then all I really see in their future is police in riot-gear.

The more Dem support there is for these employees, the more support overall for them there will be from the general population. I hope this builds into a growing tide. But it's important to not let the discussion be limited at merely getting back-pay or severance packages. There may be lots of famous Dem politicians voicing their support, but nobody wants to be the first to mention employee control. If they won't mention it, then we have to mention it... and we have to spread those voices among the employees and the community so much that it can no longer be ignored by the Dems. I'd imagine many of them are already thinking the same thing, but they are afraid of being pilloried in the press for bringing it up - so we have to break the ice for them.

[ckaihatsu]

Chicago factory occupation: Workers say "Fight back!"

Rally on Wednesday, Dec 10 at noon at Bank of America 231 S. LaSalle Avenue in Chicago.

Chicago, IL - Sunday night, Dec. 7 in Chicago brought more good news to the workers occupying the Republic Windows and Glass factory . The enormous outpouring of support was instantly noticed in the front room outside the worker-guarded doors by the wall to wall notes of solidarity from the hundreds of people who have come by. The workers described how happy they were to get Reverend Jesse Jackson's support earlier in the day and the cheers that happened in the cafeteria when they heard about President-elect Obama's statement of support for their cause. They then set their sights on getting Governor Blagojevich to weigh in on the demands for the over $1 million owed these 200 workers.

There was talk that Monday would bring a proposal to the Chicago City Council to take its money out of Bank of America until the Republic workers' demands are met. The meeting is still set for Monday at 4:00 with Republic representatives, Bank of America and the workers.

The Tuesday rally planned has been expanded to an even larger rally on Wednesday, Dec 10 at noon at Bank of America headquarters 231 S LaSalle Avenue in Chicago.

The workers are noticeably more organized and more confident as they do filmed interviews just outside the worker secured doors. Passersby come in with small bakery boxes of cupcakes at the same time that restaurant owners carry in carloads of prepared food. A cardboard donation box sits on a chair by the door and later SEIU Local 73 called in their support with a check of $2000.

Vice-president of UE Local 1110, Melvin Macklin, outside briefly for a cigarette in the sub-zero weather explained that inside the plant is still an estimated $3 to 5 million of inventory and that they do not believe that the company has been honest with them about its finances. He laughs with the other workers; Ron Bender with 14 years at the plant, Luis Moreno also with 14 years and Erik Ramos with 15 and a half years that they will not let the company change names, declare bankruptcy or any other trick to get out of their responsibilities. When asked how he felt when he got the news earlier this week, he answered "Shafted!" When asked what message he was sending he said, "Fight back!"

__________________________________________________ ___
Fight Back News Service | www.fightbacknews.org

If you received this from somebody else, you can subscribe to Fight Back News Service at
http://www.fightbacknews.org/fbns/?p=subscribe&id=1

[ckaihatsu]

www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-workerstakeover-b,0,2326210.story
chicagotribune.com


Ill. gov says state won't do business with BofA


Associated Press

10:43 AM CST, December 8, 2008

CHICAGO

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has ordered all state agencies to stop doing business with Bank of America to pressure the company to help workers who are staging a sit-in at a shuttered Chicago plant.

The move is leverage to convince the North Carolina-based bank to use some of its federal bailout money to resolve the situation at Republic Windows and Doors.

The company closed last week with just a few days' notice.

Blagojevich says banks got bailout money and should provide lines of credit to businesses that need it so workers can keep working.

The state also will get a federal court injunction tomorrow to make sure federal law is followed so workers get benefits like severance and vacation pay.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[ckaihatsu]

http://news.google.com/?geo=60618&ncl=1277917943&hl=en

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=429

Chicago Aldermen Aim to End City's Business with Bank of America

CHICAGO
Press Conference

* When: Noon
* Where:
Chicago City Hall
Outside of the City Council Chambers
2nd Floor
* Who: 15 city aldermen and labor leaders from UE, the Chicago Federation of Labor and SEIU.

A contingent of 15 Chicago aldermen said today they will introduce an ordinance to require the city to stop doing any business with the Bank of America.

Bank of America cut off its line of credit to Republic Windows and Doors, causing the Chicago company to halt operations on Friday, December 5 and terminate its 250 workers with only three days notice, and without receiving their earned vacation pay and other compensation they are entitled to under the WARN Act. The workers' situation attracted world-wide attention begining Friday evening, when they began occupying the plant, refusing to leave until Bank of America, the company and other creditors honor their obligations to employees.

'Outrageous, Unfair and Arrogant'

“It is outrageous for Bank of America to cut off credit, a company’s lifeblood, after receiving $15 billion of taxpayers’ money as part of the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),” said Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward). Bank of America also has raised $9 billion in taxpayer guaranteed loans and is expected to receive another $10 billion in TARP funds in the next two weeks.

“It’s not only unfair to the workers, but also Bank of America is thumbing its nose at Congress by taking federal recovery funds while refusing to extend credit to a small manufacturing company with a long history of profitability,” said Thomas Balanoff, president of SEIU Illinois Council. “Bank of America’s withdrawal of credit also contradicts and undercuts President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to stimulate the depressed economy by investing in weatherization of existing homes and buildings and in other infrastructure and energy-saving construction,” Balanoff added.

'Greater Demand with Obama's Proposals'

“The workers want Bank of America to keep the plant open and the workers employed,” said Carl Rosen, president of UE, the union that represents the Republic workers. “There is always a demand for windows and doors. But with Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal, there will be even greater demand for the products made by Republic’s workers. It doesn’t make sense to close this plant when the need is so obvious,” he added.

The ordinance requires that any City of Chicago funds deposited at Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be removed and placed with another suitable bank. It also states that Bank of America shall not be selected to underwrite, sell, market or re-market any City of Chicago bonds without the explicit approval of City Council.

'We Have a Right to be Treated Fairly'

The ordinance also contains a provision requiring that any proposed change in zoning of a property owned by Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be brought individually before the full City Council for evaluation and approval.

“Under the law, the City Council has the authority and responsibility to take into account the interests of Chicago and its residents when deciding which banks to do business with,” said Alderman Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward). “Bank of America profits handsomely from the business it gets from the City and other governments. We have a right to demand that workers are treated fairly.”

Cook County Commissioner Michael Quigley is preparing a similar ordinance to curtail the county’s business with Bank of America.

[which doctor]

of course the bureaucrats and labor politicians are trying their hardest to recuperate the movement

I haven't gone down there yet (been very busy), but I'll have some time tomorrow

sorry, I have no camcorder or camera, so don't be expecting pics

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84899/index.php


A Bank That Screws Republic Workers Deserves a Bank Run


Bank of America has pocketed billions in taxpayer bail-out money over the past few weeks and yet, as of this writing, has refused to extend the loans necessary for Republic Windows and Doors to pay its workers their severance pay, let alone re-start the factory.
Tomorrow morning there is a meeting of the bank, company representatives, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, and the union aimed at resolving the dispute.

I propose that if Bank of America doesn't agree at that meeting to spread "its" wealth, that community and labor activists call for a good old-fashioned bank run on Bank of America.

It's the holiday season. Think "It's a Wonderful Life," but with the evil Henry Potter running Bank of America, rather than Jimmy Stewart trying to save the good ol' Bailey Savings and Loan.

Bank of America is a behemoth — #3 in deposits nationally and since its 2007 purchase of Chicago's LaSalle Bank, #2 in Chicago. But they are vulnerable, politically and financially.

Politically, the news of Republic workers' courageous struggle has lit up the net around the world. Millions struggling to make ends meet themselves are insulted as they watch a bank receive no-strings-attached billions of taxpayer money. They are further insulted that Bank of America doesn't unilaterally offer to at least pay off the workers (let up re-start the plant) when it was just this sort of credit lock-up that the government's bank bailout was supposed to resolve.

Financially, even the biggest banks are petrified that news could get out that any of them are a bad bet. The FDIC's list of hundreds of vulnerable banks is a closely guarded secret aimed at preventing bank runs. In the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, all of them are vulnerable.

Aside from that big-picture analysis, I won't even pretend to know what B of A's current financial state is.

All I know is that a bank that so visibly screws workers deserves payback. If Bank of America does not cough up real dough for Republic workers at tomorrow's meeting, Chicago area community and labor activists should call for withdrawal of bank deposits from B of A, a national divestment if you will.

Henry Potter's evil bank will deserve a good ol' fashioned bank run.


Re: A Bank That Screws Republic Workers Deserves a Bank Run
Current rating: 0

07 Dec 2008
by Info
Reply to this comment

A bank run is EXTREMELY easy to accomplish, especially if we take into consideration that any bank that's a member of the Federal Reserve System practices fractional reserve banking (i.e. about 10% of their "assets" is cash). In other words, if the books say that BoA has, say, 1 billion in deposits, then it only has 100 million in cash.

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84910/index.php


Fellow Workers:


* Silas Crane

You're in there for us. We're out here for you.
Fellow Workers:

A moment of decision is approaching. On December 5th hundreds of workers at Republic Windows and Doors, a production facility in Chicago, set a new standard of militancy for the labor movement in the United States. Instead of accepting their bosses’ decision to shut down their factory, laying employees off with no advance notice and no severance pay, these workers organized a spontaneous occupation unlike anything that has been seen since the Great Depression. By refusing to abandon their workplace, they sent a clear message to the bosses: This factory does not belong to you. Our work is our own, and we will not let you take our livelihood away from us in order to preserve your own interests. The bank that financed the factory – Bank of America, which has received $25 billion in bail-out funds from Congress – sealed the workers’ fate by cutting off the company’s credit-line, thus revealing the true attitude of the financial industry towards working people in this country. Billions of dollars to banks while workers are deprived of millions in basic pay? Hierarchical decisions that serve management’s bottom-line at the expense of ordinary employees? The bold men and women at Republic have shown that they will not allow these insults and injustices to persist. (There is even serious talk of resuming production without the unnecessary burden of bosses’ ownership and supervision.)

Already (after three days) this courageous act of resistance has mobilized individuals and organizations throughout the world. Since the occupation began, hundreds of supporters have appeared at the factory doors to offer donations and express their solidarity with those inside. Food has been served, union songs have been sung (in multiple languages), leaflets have been exchanged. Soapbox orations have been delivered, colorfully interspersed with rousing sidewalk debates. And yet there are also those who will seek to exploit this collective energy for their own personal or “political” gain. Already a number of politicians and local celebrities have insinuated themselves into the spotlight, having sniffed out the PR benefits of being photographed with struggling workers in a time of economic crisis. Luis Guttierez, a local Democratic member of Congress, is helping to “mediate” between the bank, company management, and the union bureaucracy – winning future votes among the powerful, but leaving the workers without a voice. President-elect Obama himself has weighed in on the situation, using the opportunity to propagandize for his Wall Street-based economic stimulus package. (To his credit, Obama endorsed the workers’ demand for back pay; but his idea of worker solidarity ends with asking the banks to show more benevolence.) All in all, the event promises to be a field day for pseudo-leftist political operatives who are searching for ways to incorporate working-class imagery into their top-down programs of economic reconstruction.

But the fundamental reality of the Republic occupation – that it is a struggle initiated by workers to gain control over their own livelihood, to meet their own needs and the needs of their communities – cannot be denied. The spirit of autonomy and workers’ solidarity that made the factory takeover possible is stronger than all the outside forces of co-optation put together. No amount of media spectacle or political manipulation will make this spirit go away. The urgent question is whether we as a movement are prepared – morally, materially, and politically – to provide the support that will enable these workers to radicalize their struggle, and to turn their resistance into something more than an isolated act of desperation. Tomorrow (Monday December 8th) negotiations will be held to determine whether the employers will meet the workers’ demands (and the demands of the law) for full severance and vacation pay, along with compensation for any unpaid wages. But, even if these negotiations are successful, the struggle cannot end there. By joining together in defiance of their employer’s authority, the Republic workers demonstrated their ability to act cooperatively and autonomously in pursuit of a common purpose. These same impulses could empower them to take control of their factory’s production, and to create an independent system of self-management that would serve as a model for future experiments in economic self-government.

In order to realize these possibilities, the Republic workers will need the constant solidarity and dedication of many individuals both within and outside of Chicago. Attempts to subdue the workers’ independent self-organization by forcing their activity into the framework of union bureaucracy must be broken down. Those who are putting their bodies and bread on the line must be assured that they can rely on sources of support outside the official union hierarchy. (The Electrical Workers Union is made up of many fine people – but they are not a union of workers, by workers, and for workers.) The agents of enslavement and economic control (i.e. Bank of America, Republic management) must be prevented from intervening to break up the workers’ struggle and reclaim their property. Hold demonstrations and solidarity actions outside (or inside) Bank of America offices! Disrupt and Sabotage wherever the managing class resides! By all means, write to the workers directly, and let them know that you are willing and able to help. We need to build a network of cooperation that will produce food, information, know-how, and security for these workers as they attempt to reconstitute their production facilities in the spirit of self-management. Most of all, we need to follow their example – to heed the Battle Hymn of the Republic workers – and transform the conditions of our own workplaces. In short, we need to dump the bosses off our backs.

This is indeed a decisive moment of reckoning for the independent labor movement, at home and abroad. If we want to create a world in which the conditions of economic life are organized fairly and democratically, according to basic human needs – and not according to the logic of speculative markets, or the interests of a wealthy ruling class – the Republic occupation offers a hopeful starting point for action. We are the only ones who can create this future – and our collective will is more powerful than we know.

Silas Crane
Chicago, IL

Related

* http://www.counterpunch.org/gross12082008.html

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84911/index.php


The Chicago Sit-Down Strike


The Spark We Need.

The corporations got sloppy. From the hedge-fund parasites to the housing market fraudsters, the corporate criminals have shown their hand. Their filthy fingerprints are all over the economic pain blanketing the country and the world.

To add insult to injury, the corporate agents in government, also known as politicians, are looting incomprehensible billions of dollars to turn over to the fat-cat executives.

Working families have long known the pain of stagnant wages, steep rents, and unaffordable heath care and education in the United States. But there’s no doubt that this recession has squeezed the vise beyond what many of us have seen in our lifetimes.

What’s invigorating and critically important though is the rising awareness that corporations are to blame for the current calamity, and that this crisis is not merely, “a force of nature.” Working people across the country are pointing the blame where it belongs. The elites understand this rising public awareness of corporate wrongdoing as well. How else to explain President George W. Bush feeling obligated to give a speech last month in New York defending capitalism itself?

According to this year’s Gallup survey on opinions toward 25 business sectors, all but one sector (sports) suffered a decline in esteem. The real estate industry suffered the greatest decline in positive ratings for any industry in the history of the poll. Only 16% of those questioned had a positive view of the real estate business. Banking also suffered a precipitous drop from 50% rating it positively last year to just 36% giving a favorable nod this year.

The combination of economic pain and rising awareness of corporate culpability has created a tremendous opportunity for workplace and community organizers interested in transformational change. This is our time: time to step up the intensity of our outreach and organizing around demands which challenge the dominance of the corporations in our lives.

The incredible power of the multi-national corporations is the fundamental driver of misery in our world today from rampant poverty and environmental degradation to mass incarceration and war. Real change, that is change which necessarily involves a direct conflict with corporate power, has not and will not come from politicians, “socially responsible” corporations, or trade union bureaucrats. Authentic change has come and will continue to come from the rank and file, the grassroots.

No surprise then that such a bold stroke for justice has come from workers in one of the great rank and file-centered unions, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE).

Some 200 UE members at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago have sat-down and occupied their plant until they win the compensation they are owed. The peaceful occupation began Friday on the last day of the plant’s scheduled operations before closure.

Republic reportedly failed to comply with notification rules for mass layoffs and skipped a meeting with a member of Congress to discuss the workers’ predicament. The union says bailed out Bank of America is to blame for freezing Republic’s line of credit and keeping it from paying owed severance and vacation pay.

Ron Bender, a striker with 14 years at the company, put it poignantly to the AFP news wire: “We're doing this for the other working people in the country.”

Amen. The UE strikers occupying their plant are sending a message to all workers that the corporations care nothing for your life and the lives of your family members. They will come for your job at some point either to take it away from you or to degrade it. But with organizing and action we can fight back and win.

Direct action, undertaken by the grassroots, will only increase as the recession continues and government unaccountability becomes more and more obvious. (Look at the marvelous efforts of the young people in California who recently used civil disobedience to disrupt the Northern California headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in response to horrifying immigration raids).

The first recorded sit-down strike was conducted by members of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1906 at a General Electric plant in New York. The tactic shot to lasting fame with the great UAW automobile workers’ sit-ins in 1930s Michigan. While there have been labor sit-ins in the United States since then (civil rights sit-ins in the 50’s and 60’s were frequent and effective), they have not been a prominent tactic in our labor movement for decades.

The action of these strikers is profound. By occupying their plant and refusing to be swept under the rug, the workers have both deployed an effective tool to reclaim their money and challenged the sacredness of corporate property. They have set an example for all of us to bring back to our workplaces and communities.

In the Industrial Workers of the World, we have a saying: “You’re in there for us, we’re out here for you.” It’s used to encourage solidarity for unionists who have been imprisoned for defending their class. It strikes me that as the UE workers continue their action, the same concept is applicable. Those of us outside the Republic factory should be there for these workers who are taking action on behalf of us all. Heartening early signs indicate that solidarity has thus far been robust.

Of course, the right-wing will condemn the workers’ actions; in my recurring nightmare one of their off-the-wall pundits compares this dignified, peaceful action to the recent wave of high-seas piracy.

The liberals will express sympathy for the workers’ plight but too many will disagree with the means employed, i.e., using direct action vs. having a candle-light vigil or sending letters to Congress.

By contrast, I’m betting that multitudes of rank and file workers will express solidarity with both the workers’ cause and the means they chose to vindicate their rights; full, unequivocal solidarity.

To help out, please log on to www.ueunion.org for details on how to provide financial and moral support to the strikers today. Next, I imagine if victory is not achieved quickly, the union may call on supporters to take peaceful yet assertive actions at Bank of America branches across the country. Local groups and coalitions might want to start researching and planning actions should the UE strikers call on us to escalate pressure. Finally, it looks like the workers are now contesting the very closing of the plant and maybe they’ll even seek to run the plant themselves without bosses, both moves which will require a long-term and steady commitment of solidarity from supporters.

As big business indulges us with more sleepless nights worrying about how bills will be paid and the government steals more of our money, let’s make the Republic sit-down strike the spark of energy we need to begin liberating our lives from corporate dominance for good.

-- Daniel Gross is an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World and the author with Staughton Lynd of the recently released, “Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law” (PM Press 2008). He can be reached at dgross (at) iww.org.

Related

* http://www.counterpunch.org/gross12082008.html

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84916/index.php


Trabajadores ocupan su fábrica en Chicago


El viernes unos 300 trabajadores de la fábrica Republic Window & Door de Chicago han ocupado la planta exigiendo el pago de los salarios atrasados e indemnizaciones que debe la empresa. Por primera vez desde el nacimiento de la federación sindical CIO en los años treinta, los trabajadores norteamericanos ocupan su centro de trabajo. Cuando los empresarios presionan para situar la carga del fracaso de la economía sobre los hombros de los trabajadores, la lucha de clases regresa a EEUU.

EEUU: Trabajadores ocupan su fábrica en Chicago
escrito por David May
www. elmilitante. org/content/view/5214/86/
lunes, 08 de diciembre de 2008

El viernes unos 300 trabajadores de la fábrica Republic Window & Door de Chicago han ocupado la planta exigiendo el pago de los salarios atrasados e indemnizaciones que debe la empresa. Por primera vez desde el nacimiento de la federación sindical CIO en los años treinta, los trabajadores norteamericanos ocupan su centro de trabajo. Cuando los empresarios presionan para situar la carga del fracaso de la economía sobre los hombros de los trabajadores, la lucha de clases regresa a EEUU. Los mayoritariamente 300 militantes latinos del United Electrical Workers comenzaron la ocupación antes de que los empresarios cerraran la fábrica. La empresa avisó a los trabajadores del cierro con menos de los 60 días necesarios, violando las leyes laborales federales. La empresa informó de que sus beneficios mensuales habían caído aproximadamente un 25 por ciento, a 2,9 millones de dólares. Pero la empresa continuaba recibiendo pedidos el último día previsto de funcionamiento, así que los trabajadores dudaron de la necesidad que la empresa tenía de cerrar sus puertas.

La dirección de Republic dijo a los trabajadores que era necesario cerrar la empresa para conseguir préstamos de su principal acreedor, el Bank of Marica. Los trabajadores de UE organizaron un piquete frente a la sede del Banco en Chicago el 3 de diciembre. A pesar de que el banco y la dirección de Republic pidieron al local 1.110 del UE una reunión para discutir las indemnizaciones y otras cuestiones, la reunión fue saboteada cuando la empresa no se presentó. Los trabajadores respondieron ocupando la fábrica.

El Bank of America era uno de los bancos más grades que participó en el gigantesco plan de rescate de 700.000 millones de dólares aprobado por los partidos Demócrata y Republicano en el Congreso el pasado mes de octubre. También fue apoyado tanto por Barack Obama como por John McCain. A pesar de conseguir miles de millones de los contribuyentes, la mayoría trabajadores, los banqueros se niegan a utilizar el dinero público para otra cosa que no sea el beneficio privado.

¡Esa es la penosa realidad del capitalismo!

La otra cara de esta realidad es que no se pueden conseguir concesiones significativas de los empresarios, incluso algo tan básico como una indemnización salarial, excepto mediante la lucha de clases. Deberíamos preguntar que si el Bank of America se está "rescatando" con dinero público, ¿por qué no es de propiedad pública? Si Republic accede a la ayuda pública, este dinero debería ser utilizado para mantener abierta la fábrica y los empleos de los trabajadores. Si no hay margen para que los empresarios continúen haciendo beneficios, entonces la fábrica debe ser de propiedad pública y bajo el control democrático de los trabajadores, sin ningún tipo de compensación para los empresarios y eliminando el motor que supone el beneficio. Mientras tanto, la única manera en que los trabajadores pueden recibir la indemnización y el dinero que les deben es manteniendo la ocupación hasta que la administración y el Bank of America cedan.

Esta ocupación de la fábrica es un ejemplo para millones de trabajadores de todo EEUU que se enfrentan a un aumento masivo de los despidos, cierres de empresa, recortes salariales y de beneficios. Ya se han organizado asambleas de solidaridad en la zona de Chicago. Las federaciones sindicales AFL-CIO y Change to Win deberían movilizar al movimiento obrero en todo el país en apoyo de los trabajadores de Republic.

¡Una ofensa a uno es una ofensa para todos!

La Workers International League se solidariza con el local 1.110 del UE. Pedimos a nuestros lectores y seguidores que envíen mensajes de solidaridad, pedimos que nuestros sindicatos aprueban resoluciones y organicen actos de solidaridad.

Se pueden enviar mensajes de solidaridad al Local 1.110 del UE a la siguiente dirección: leahfried (at) gmail.com

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84917/index.php


The Rude Pundit - The Chicago Factory Sit-In: A Real Protest


A real, genuine protest never occurs when someone gets a license from the city to do so. No, that's, at best, a march, but mostly just a jerk-off fest (and the Rude Pundit says this as someone who regularly joins in the circle jerk). A real protest should fuck up somebody's day and force the government to choose sides. A real protest should be led by people for whom the issue being protested is a life-changing situation. And a real protest should quickly and easily crystallize something that deeply matters to a large number of people. In the last couple of decades, legitimately in-yer-fuckin'-face protest has been hard to come by: Cindy Sheehan's trip to Crawford comes to mind. On the other side of the political spectrum, you can put the Operation Rescue blockades (which, as he's said before, the Rude Pundit wished nothing but failure for, but it was objectively effective).

Basically, you need a confluence of tinder and match. And now we have it in Chicago, sweet Chicago, home of so many of the greatest and worst moments of the workers' movement in this nation's history. Last Friday, when the 250 factory workers at Republic Windows and Doors were told to fuck off by the owners when the company suddenly closed, the vinyl siding and sliding glass door assemblers said, "No, fuck you," and decided to occupy the building. And there they have stayed, in a righteous sit-in, and there they say they will stay.

Says the New York Times, "The workers, members of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, said they were owed vacation and severance pay and were not given the 60 days of notice generally required by federal law when companies make layoffs." Seems that "the company notified employees Tuesday that they would shut down Friday, and that no severance pay or benefits would be paid out." Merry fuckin' Christmas, motherfuckers.

Imagine that. The mostly Hispanic workers telling the rest of the country, "You mean some fuckin' douchebag in a suit can squat his waxed ass in a comfy leather chair in a hearing room in DC and get a few hundred billion dollars for his other douchebags in suits, no strings attached, and no one's gonna give a fuck if our bosses don't even follow the fuckin' law?" Auto workers, you need any more inspiration?

Not only do they have the support of the community, with people, even strangers, bringing them food and water and more, not only do they have a member of Congress, Luis Gutierrez (guess which party), negotiating with company officials for them, but the workers now have the support of the President-elect. At press conference #572 on Sunday, Barack Obama said, "The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned, I think they're absolutely right and understand that what's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."

This is a shot across the bow to Congress, a way of saying, "Hello, you sons and daughters of *****es, this is the way corporate America has been treating your constituents for years. While you're giving AIG enough to fund a small nation, how about tilting our way for a little while?" And if they don't listen, let's hope the next protests and the ones after that are bigger and more widespread. Shit needs to be shut down in order to wipe away all the bullshit lies of the free market (that's not really free).

Related

* http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2008/12/chicago-factory-sit-in-real-protest.html

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84892/index.php

More on the Republic glass factory occupation available at www.infamousscribbler.blogspot.com


HPIM1706.JPG
Armando Robles Speaks about the Republic glass factory occupation at the People's Thanksgiving.
Click on image for a larger version

HPIM1720.JPG
Workers staying the night at the Republic glass factory.
Click on image for a larger version

HPIM1718.JPG

One of the Republic glass factory workers stands near the solidarity board where community members have been signing to show their support.
More photos, videos and news about the Republic glass factory workers occupation of their workplace is available at www.infamousscribbler.blogspot.com

I also have older news, photos and videos from anti-war, pro-gay rights, and other progressive actions at www.infamousscribbler.blogspot.com

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84885/index.php


Petition: In Solidarity with the Chicago Workers of Republic Windows and Doors


To: Bank of America and Republic Windows and Doors management
As students and youth, we stand in solidarity with the Chicago workers at the Republic of Windows and Doors factory in their just struggle against closure, and for the right to their jobs and health care. The wealthy bankers at Bank of America got $25 billion in the bailout, but is refusing loans to the company. The management owes over 1 million dollars in severance and vacation pay. We know it is the big bankers and bosses who have laid off, cut benefits, and sold out the worker. Everyone should support the workers' occupation of the factory to demand workers' rights and justice.

We join in the chant with them:

Bank of America got Bailed Out! We got Sold Out!!!

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

View current signatures
[ www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi ]

Sign the Petition
[ www.petitiononline.com/solidfac/petition-sign.html
]

For more information:
www.fightbacknews.org/2008/12/chicago-workers-occupy-plant.htm
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84872/index.php

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84884/index.php


PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago


* Chris Geovanis/Chicago Indymedia

Hundreds of people gathered Saturday afternoon at the Republic Windows factory on Chicago's Goose Island to lend their solidarity to Republic workers, who occupied the plant on Friday. The workers have vowed to continue the occupation until they are paid back pay and benefits, or until the plant is re-opened -- by the owners or by the workers themselves.

Click on image for a larger version

1a-12-6-08CAG.JPG
1b-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1c-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1d-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1e-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1g-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1h-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1i-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1j-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1k-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1l-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1m-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1n-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1o-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1p-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1q-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1r-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1s-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1t-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1u-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1v-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1w-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1x-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1y-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

1z-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2a-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2b-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2c-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2d-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2e-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2f-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2g-12-6-08CAG.JPG
Click on image for a larger version

2h-12-6-08CAG.JPG


Hundreds of people gathered Saturday afternoon at the Republic Windows factory on Chicago's Goose Island to lend their solidarity to Republic workers, who occupied the plant on Friday. The workers have vowed to continue the occupation until they are paid back pay and benefits, or until the plant is re-opened -- by the owners or by the workers themselves.

On Tuesday, the owners announced that because Bank of America has cut their credit line, the factory would be shuttered and all workers laid off on Friday -- without federally and state-mandated notice, severance pay and benefits. The workers instead voted to take over the plant, and have vowed to occupy the factory floor until the company pays them the money they're owed.

Bank of America received $25 billion in federal bailout money earlier this fall, despite pointing out at the time that they were not in financial need. Since the bailout began, BOA -- like other big banks across the globe -- has slashed essential credit lines to manufacturing and service businesses, forcing a growing number of small and medium-sized companies to shut down.

The action at Republic Windows comes on the heels of a workers' campaign at the plant to kick out the company union, which had colluded with company owners and management for years. That effort succeeded after three years of struggle, and workers have vowed to take that fighting spirit of solidarity to the wall with the factory occupation, as well.

Republic Windows' worker occupation is one of the first actions of its kind in the United States since the Great Depression, when a wave of worker seizures of factories and manufacturing operations marked one of the most militant phases in U.S. labor history.


Comments

Re: PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago

Current rating: 0
06 Dec 2008
by Lev
Reply to this comment

Thanks for posting these, Chris. This is a long time coming, and the way the economy's going, we're going to need a helluva lot more actions like this.

Any word on next steps @ Republic?

CLERGY AND COMMUNITY HOLD PRAYER VIGIL FOR WORKERS OCCUPYING REPUBLIC WINDOWS PLANT

Current rating: 0
06 Dec 2008
by Chicago Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues (CIMC repost)
Reply to this comment

Official media alert from CICWI: The Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues held a prayer rally for the 200 workers who have been told that their plant is closing but have not been properly paid by the guidelines set forth in the WARN Act. It is estimated that the workers are owed $1,000,000.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 5, 2008

For Further Information:

Rev. CJ.. Hawking: 773-937-1824; cjhawking (at) aol.com
Adam Kader: 773-937-1826; akader (at) cicwi.org

CLERGY AND COMMUNITY HOLD PRAYER VIGIL FOR WORKERS OCCUPYING REPUBLIC WINDOWS PLANT

Visual: Clergy and community praying with workers who have been occupying their window-manufacturing plant since Friday morning.

WHO: Clergy and Community Leaders with workers occupying plant
WHERE: Republic Windows, 1333 N Hickory (on Goose Island)
WHEN: Saturday, December 6 at 12:00 noon

The Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues is holding a prayer rally for the 200 workers who have been told that their plant is closing but have not been properly paid by the guidelines set forth in the WARN Act. It is estimated that the workers are owed $1,000,000.

On Wednesday the workers, members of the United Electrical Workers union, protested outside of Bank of America in downtown Chicago, chanting, “You got bailed out, we got sold out.” With Republic Windows not able to pay its workers, Bank of America apparently now owns the plant, filled with inventory and expensive equipment. The workers insist that they get paid before the assets are removed from the expansive plant.

As a sign of solidarity with the workers, religious and community leaders will lead prayers and speak about the workers’ rights to just compensation and fair treatment in the midst of these harsh economic times.

###

Re: PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago
Current rating: 0

06 Dec 2008
by Chris Geovanis
Reply to this comment

NEXT STEPS AT REPUBLIC:

Two developments. First, the workers are scheduled to meet with BoA reps and company reps, plus state labor officials, on Monday. In previously scheduled meetings, the company reps have not shown up. What a shocker.

Second, Jobs With Justice is planning a worker solidarity picket of Bank of America at noon on Tuesday, Dec. 9, at the bank's LaSalle St. offices. Not sure of address, but may be site at 135 S. LaSalle St. We'll post as we get more info.

Re: PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago
Current rating: 0

06 Dec 2008
by Argentina, all over again?
Reply to this comment

After the 2001 economic crash in Argentina, around 200 bankrupt and closed-down business were occupied and then taken over by their workers. Most of these workers formed cooperatives to manage the business without the boss, and run it themselves. Eventually, dozens of these "recovered" businesses were granted legal recognition by the government, which used eminent domain to transfer ownership from the original owners to the worker coops, giving a 20-year mortgage at favorable lending terms.

As it turns out, "recovered" businesses are doing rather well. They've discovered that the previous owners were pretty much unnecessary for running the business; ditto with top management. Most of the working people are paid at least as well as they were before the takeover, and many are getting paid more. In any case, it seems to be a good way to put a business back to work quickly, in a way that preserves peoples' jobs. Basically, the state settles the bankruptcy on its terms, in effect nationalizing the business, and then appoints the productive workers to run it. Perhaps the 20-year loan could be based on the amount of the outstanding credit settlement.

I've been in Argentina recently, and conducted interviews with workers at many of these businesses for the dissertation I am writing. I would love to make contact with someone among the Republic workers, and make sure they know about what's going on in Argentina. I could even share some Argentine contacts with recovered businesses, so they could swap notes. In any case, someone should let them know about this model for keeping a business from shutting down. A good lawyer and a sympathetic city council could make this happen here.

Re: PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago
Current rating: 0

06 Dec 2008
by cag cag
Reply to this comment

A good spot for additional news is Pilsen Prole, pilsenprole.blogspot.com/

Jesse Jackson is going to the factory Sunday morning at around 10:30 AM. Might be able to catch workers before or after; I would simply stop by and talk to them. You can also contact UE organizers for the effort directly; contact info below.

Contacts: Leah Fried, United Electrical Workers, 773-550-3022
Mark Meinster, United Electrical Workers, 773-405-3022

Re: PHOTOS: Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago
Current rating: 0

08 Dec 2008
by NL
Reply to this comment

You shuold do it as Zanon Workers in Argentina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KbPjaUoB0o The solution is Expropriation and workers control of the production. Luchar, Vencer, Obreros al poder!!

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=429

Chicago Aldermen Aim to End City's Business with Bank of America

CHICAGO
Press Conference

* When: Noon
* Where:
Chicago City Hall
Outside of the City Council Chambers
2nd Floor
* Who: 15 city aldermen and labor leaders from UE, the Chicago Federation of Labor and SEIU.

A contingent of 15 Chicago aldermen said today they will introduce an ordinance to require the city to stop doing any business with the Bank of America.

Bank of America cut off its line of credit to Republic Windows and Doors, causing the Chicago company to halt operations on Friday, December 5 and terminate its 250 workers with only three days notice, and without receiving their earned vacation pay and other compensation they are entitled to under the WARN Act. The workers' situation attracted world-wide attention begining Friday evening, when they began occupying the plant, refusing to leave until Bank of America, the company and other creditors honor their obligations to employees.

'Outrageous, Unfair and Arrogant'

“It is outrageous for Bank of America to cut off credit, a company’s lifeblood, after receiving $15 billion of taxpayers’ money as part of the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),” said Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward). Bank of America also has raised $9 billion in taxpayer guaranteed loans and is expected to receive another $10 billion in TARP funds in the next two weeks.

“It’s not only unfair to the workers, but also Bank of America is thumbing its nose at Congress by taking federal recovery funds while refusing to extend credit to a small manufacturing company with a long history of profitability,” said Thomas Balanoff, president of SEIU Illinois Council. “Bank of America’s withdrawal of credit also contradicts and undercuts President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to stimulate the depressed economy by investing in weatherization of existing homes and buildings and in other infrastructure and energy-saving construction,” Balanoff added.

'Greater Demand with Obama's Proposals'

“The workers want Bank of America to keep the plant open and the workers employed,” said Carl Rosen, president of UE, the union that represents the Republic workers. “There is always a demand for windows and doors. But with Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal, there will be even greater demand for the products made by Republic’s workers. It doesn’t make sense to close this plant when the need is so obvious,” he added.

The ordinance requires that any City of Chicago funds deposited at Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be removed and placed with another suitable bank. It also states that Bank of America shall not be selected to underwrite, sell, market or re-market any City of Chicago bonds without the explicit approval of City Council.

'We Have a Right to be Treated Fairly'

The ordinance also contains a provision requiring that any proposed change in zoning of a property owned by Bank of America, or any of its subsidiaries, be brought individually before the full City Council for evaluation and approval.

“Under the law, the City Council has the authority and responsibility to take into account the interests of Chicago and its residents when deciding which banks to do business with,” said Alderman Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward). “Bank of America profits handsomely from the business it gets from the City and other governments. We have a right to demand that workers are treated fairly.”

Cook County Commissioner Michael Quigley is preparing a similar ordinance to curtail the county’s business with Bank of America.

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84901/index.php


Updates on the situation at Republic Windows...


* JJerry Mead-Lucero, pilsenprole

Hi All, I am reporting at this moment from the worker occupied Republic Windows factory in Chicago.

PICT1189.JPG

I don't have any new audio for you yet but I do have some new news items...

1. Unofficial word is that there seems to be a strong likelihood the company had planned to close and move operations out of state. The workers had feared this since the equipment was removed from the factory a few weeks ago. UE staff have been investigating the situation and may have turned up evidence that this was the company's plan. This is a tried and true tactic of many manufacturers - closing a facility with decent wages and benefits and re-incorporating, sometimes under a new name, where they can pay substantial less.

2. There is more and more talk amongst the workers and UE staff that the company should remain in operation in some capacity. Many of the supporters who have been showing up have been encouraging the workers to take over the factory. Up until now, the workers seemed to think that closure of Republic could not be prevented. But I think this situation maybe changing.

3. There will be a press conference at City Hall tomorrow at noon. It seems as if some important announcements will be made than. But UE staff are saying that nothing will be resolved before 4 PM tomorrow when the company, the bank and the union meet.

4. The rally planned for 12 noon Tuesday outside the LaSalle Bank building at 231 S. LaSalle has been re-schedueled to Wednesday.

5. There is a rally planned outside the Bank of America facility in La Vilita (26th & Trumbull) by the March 10th Committee for 2 PM tomorrow. Their message is that the Latino community wants Bank of America to give their workers their due or Latinos will pull the money out of Bank of America.

You can see more pictures here...
[ s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb5/kronstadt2/Republic%20Factory%20Occupation%202/ ]

Related

* http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84902/index.php


Victory for the United Electrical Workers Plant Takeover in Chicago!


* Workers Action

On December 5, in Chicago, the owners of Republic Windows and Doors were set to close their doors after declaring financial ruin and abruptly laid off its 260 mostly Latino workers. Rather than passively accepting this kick in the teeth, the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) members decided to fight back, using a tactic not seen in this country since the 1930’s. They occupied the factory and have continued to do so in shifts since Friday.

This struggle is of exceptional importance because of its boldness in responding to the economic crisis and how it is affecting working people. This boldness could set an example for future confrontations and therefore deserves the attention and support of all workers.

The chain of events leading to this crisis started when Republic Window's creditor, Bank of America, refused to extend credit to the company. According to Crain's Chicago Business, Republic Window's sales had fallen from $4 million to $2.9 million in the last month. However, Bank of America is flush with $25 billion from the bi-partisan bail out. At a solidarity demonstration outside the plant on Saturday, protesters expressed the situation concisely with stickers and signs reading, "You got bailed out, we got sold out."

Workers are demanding $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. Federal law mandates that workers get paid for unused vacation time and are either given 60 days notice of a mass layoff or pay for that time. The UE workers were only given three days notice of the closing. Republic Window and Door's officials are claiming that Bank of America is not allowing them to make these required payments and benefit adjustments. Bank of America has responded by stating that they have no "...right to control whether a company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitment to its employees." While this bickering between thieves continues, the workers’ intolerable situation and justified anger remains. "We aren't animals," Apolinar Cabrera, a 17-year Republic Windows employee, told Chicago Town Daily News. "We're human beings and deserve to be treated like human beings."

Workers have also expressed their suspicion that Republic Windows and Doors intends to move out of state and restructure their finances, leaving debt and misery in the wake. Some have reported that as early as two weeks ago the company started moving equipment out of the plant.

In this economic crisis, given what the capitalists are trying to get away with by making working people pay for the recession, the stakes are high. A 14-year machine operator at the company, Ron Bender, observed, "We're doing this for the other working people in the country. What's happened to us can happen to anyone -- they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay."

The AFL-CIO and Change to Win, as well as all other organizations concerned with the rights of working people should line up in solidarity with these UE members by educating and mobilizing their ranks in support. A victory could embolden workers across the country to resist the results of Wall Street's greed and the bailout, which will be all the more needed as times grow harder. It could serve as a stepping stone for greater victories in the future where workers will not simply demand vacation and severance pay from a bankrupt company, but demand that such a company be nationalized under workers' control. Furthermore, such a working class movement could go beyond addressing the problems at a given company and win victories for all workers in the areas of health care, ending the current wars, ensuring adequate funding for education, creating jobs for all, and so on.

The news has been brutal and frightening for workers over the last few months. A worldwide recession of unknown depth and duration is unfolding. In this country, the number of home foreclosures is expected to hit seven million by the end of the year. Last month alone 533,000 workers lost their jobs, contributing to the highest unemployment rate in 15 years. And while this decline accelerates, workers have been stung with a Democratic Party-led bi-partisan bailout of the financial institutions whose reckless greed is responsible for this mess. The New York Times estimates that this rescue package for the wealthy will cost seven trillion American taxpayer dollars (see "The Bail Out Intensifies" on this site). While this arrangement helps to ease the capitalists’ anxiety, they place a dark cloud over working people's future. Rather than promoting economic growth, the bailout measures are more likely to result in hoarding on the part of the bailout's beneficiaries as well as produce inflation. Meanwhile, unemployment will continue to climb, and there will be further slicing of our already cut-to-the-bone social safety net by the capitalists’ politicians.

The inevitable consequence of such developments is that people are left with no choice but to fight against the conditions they are forced to endure. They begin to see that there are opposed interests at play between those who control the economy and political system, and those who are expected to do all the sacrificing. Workers will be compelled to act and, as a result, begin to become aware of themselves as a class where, if they are to defend themselves and their rights, must unite against those who are accustomed to ruling them without question. Under such circumstances, the workers' demands are always modest and partial to begin with, but, to the degree that their actions rely on their independent strength as a class, they plot a course towards growing confrontation with the capitalist status quo and thereby raise the question of who shall control society, working people or the rich minority. Nationwide, such a course initially starts with an accumulation of small skirmishes, unavoidably leading to a social explosion that can place the working class' interests on the historical stage in a way that would have been seen as impossible just a short time ago. The worker's occupation of Republic Windows and Doors could prove to be a skirmish that sets the example for a working class upsurge that will bring more change and hope into our lives than any capitalist politician ever could.

There is no telling how long this occupation and the struggle behind it will continue. Workers, Republic Windows and Doors, and Bank of America are supposed to meet at 4:00pm on Monday. Nevertheless, these workers' actions have already made a mark in labor history. Food has been coming for them from all over in solidarity. You can donate by going to www.ueunion.org and clicking on "anger in Chicago," or by writing a check payable to the "UE Local 110 Solidarity Fund" and sending it to UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607. Messages of support can be sent to organizer Leah Fried <mailto:leahfried (at) gmail.com>. At the Jobs with Justice Web site, you can send a message of protest to Bank of America. nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/12/101949.html. You can also call UE at 312-829-8300.

Even President-elect, Barak Obama, because of massive public support for the UE workers, has felt compelled to offer support to the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in the form of lip service, without promising any specific action.

Organized labor should call on the government to take over Republic Windows and Doors and let the workers run the plant themselves. This demand could be part of a government emergency public works project that would make all public buildings, beginning with public housing, more energy efficient by installing new windows and doors. Such a program could then be the first step in establishing a broad-based coalition that would advocate a public works program that would put people back to work while maintaining their standard of living. This program could instill confidence among working people and their allies and inspire them to proceed onwards to fundamentally change the economic system so that it would serve the needs of people, not the pursuit of profits for the rich.

In these hard times, now more than ever, an injury to one is an injury to all. A victory for UE Local 1110 at Republic Windows is a victory for all workers!

Related

* http://www.workerscompass.org

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84881/index.php


Chicago Workers Occupy Their Plant and Show How To Fight


Workers at Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors occupy their workplace and set an example that we must build on.

Richard Mellor
AFSCME 444, Retired

Chicago 12-6-08

I just returned from a rally at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago where workers are occupying the plant after they were given three days notice that it was closing for good. The workers were told last Tuesday that their plant would shut down on Friday.

The employer’s said that they were forced to close as their bank, Bank of America, had denied them financing so they could not continue to operate. Workers that I spoke to did not believe for one minute that their boss first knew that they would have to close the plant just three days before they did it.

The workers, members of the United Electrical Union (UE) voted unanimously to occupy the plant organizing themselves in to shifts and setting up clean up and safety committees. A worker I spoke to said that the mood was good and they were coming in and out in shifts. I asked the UE rep why the employer wasn’t threatening to drive the worker’s out from private property and she said that the Union had talks with the employer and it was most likely too that they did not want any more bad publicity and be seen as removing workers from the plant by force.

The workers are demanding that they receive their wages benefits and health care owed them by law. Under the Warren Act, workers are entitled to 60 days notice in the event of mass layoffs (75 in Illinois) and if they don’t get it they must receive the wages benefits (vacation pay) and health care for that period.

One worker I spoke to said that the company laid off 50 workers right before Thanksgiving and that they came to work one day and that much of the machinery had been dismantled and disappeared. He said that the boss never admitted to anything and that last Monday they came to work as usual but the next day (Tuesday Dec. 1st) they were told the plant was closing in three days. He said that the boss expected them to get their checks and go home Friday but they decided to stay in the plant until they got what was owed them.

At the rally outside the plant which was organized by a Chicago Interfaith group led by a Reverend CJ Hawkin, one worker, Melvin Maclan, said “It was time for the little man to stand up.” “Like Obama says”, he went on, “Yes we can.”

Lalo Munoz who has the most seniority at the plant with 34 years spoke passionately about the situation: “It’s not fair to close and kick us out on the street without vacation pay…the company don’t wanna pay it.”

The Union, B of A and the employer’s will be meeting on Monday and Lalo told the crowd of around 200 supporters that had gathered at very short notice that “We are going to stay here until we get an answer.” “Bank of America have a lot to do with this problem and it is one of the Banks that received billions from the government.”

Numerous top officials from organized Labor spoke including a Richard Berg from Teamsters Local 743 and someone from AFSCME Council 31 as well as someone from SEIU.

As is usually the case they sounded quite militant and talked of solidarity and unity and that they were speaking for their members and they were with the sit-downers on this etc.
“We are going to be here as long as it takes,” said Berg. This is a standard line that is used by Labor officials during all the defeated disputes over the last 30 years. He said that workers here are united, referring to the supporters, and that we are united across cultural, race and Union lines, Union and non-Union.

These are nice sounding words but unity is something that has to be organized and one thing that Union officials don’t do is mobilize their members to fight on our own behalf and use this power to reach in to our communities and the rest of the working class to build a generalized working class movement against the bosses’ offensive. We have seen top Union officials draw too many lines in the sand and the line has moved back so far and so often that the employers are not intimidated by it; you can only cry wolf so many times.

The fact that today’s rally was organized by Reverend Hawkin’s Interfaith group points once again to the failure of the heads of organized Labor. The Chicago Central Labor Council has up to one million members and is potentially the most powerful force in the city. The leadership of the CCLC was missing and the officials that spoke will not campaign within organized Labor against the collaboration of the heads of organized Labor with the employer’s agenda. The Reverend Hawkin and her group should be commended for their hard work and dedication, as this wouldn’t have happened at all perhaps if not for them, but the Labor leadership’s cowardice in the face of these attacks must not be obscured.

With the more generalized offensive against American workers intensifying, this is a great opportunity to build an independent movement against it and that can offer an alternative to the capitulation and concessions offered by the present Labor leadership and the Democratic Party.

Speaking to the crowd of supporters, Lalo Munoz made the point that this struggle is not just about our jobs; “We will not only lose our jobs but our homes too.” He said.

When he said that it bothered me that no speaker while I was there made any serious effort to reach out to other victims of the present crisis by calling on all people facing foreclosures to “occupy” their homes just like the Republic workers have occupied the factory; after all, most of the major media networks were covering the rally. Taking over our workplaces and taking over our homes before the banks take them from us is a first step towards the building of an independent working class movement that can change society for the better.

The workers at Republic Windows and Doors have taken a courageous step in the right direction. They are giving leadership. Working people as a whole should build on this by occupying every workplace where workers are threatened with lay offs and by organizing support for those faced with foreclosure that refuse to leave their homes. These efforts should be linked together and should take the form of Hands Off Our Homes Committees in the neighborhoods and Hands Off Our jobs, wages and benefits committees in the workplaces. Republic Windows and Doors and their supporters would be a good springboard for such an offensive

Any attempts by authorities to evict resisters from their homes or their workplaces can be met with mass rallies and direct action. This strategy can lay the basis for an offensive movement that rather than bailing out capitalism with our money, can to take on the bosses and create a democratic socialist alternative to the so-called free market.

Related

* http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
* http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.org

[ckaihatsu]

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/84882/index.php


Republic Windows Factory Occupation: News Links


This list is a work in progress. Please feel free to add any other urls to latest corporate and alternative news stories posted on the Web in the comments section below - Thanks, CIMC

# Blagojevich halts state work with Bank of America over sit-in - Chicago Sun-Times
# Illinois governor backs workers, will halt business with lender - CNN
# Chicago Aldermen Aim to End City's Business with Bank of America - UE News Update
# Breaking: Governor pressures bank in worker sit-in -, CLTV, WGN-9, WGN Radio, Chicago Tribune
# Congressman: Company to meet over workers' sit-in - AP Wire
# Republic Windows workers pin hopes on second bank meeting - Chi Town Daily News
# A Rallying Point for Labor - Socialist Worker (US)
# Workers protest against sudden lay offs - Money Times,(India)
# A Bail Out for Workers -El Diario La Prensa NY
# Chicago labor sit-in captures support from Obama - CNN
# Parties to meet over Chicago factory sit-in - USA Today
# Jesse Joins Reb Workers - The New York Post
# Chicago factory layoffs are a 'wake-up call to America' - Chicago Sun Times
# Protesting workers receiving support far and wide - KXXV-TV ABC Channel 25, Texas (AP)
# Obama: Workers staging sit-in 'absolutely right' - AP wire
# Sit-in continues at Chicago factory - The Philadelphia Inquirer (AP)
# North Carolina UE Members to Picket Bank of America's Charlotte Headquarters, in Solidarity with Chicago Sit-In - UE News Update
# Obama defends Republic Windows and Doors workers - Chicago Sun-Times
# Chicago workers' sit-in becomes rallying point - AP Wire with photos
# In Factory Sit-In, an Anger Spread Wide - New York Times
# Obama Says Workers at Chicago Factory Should Get Pay - Bloomberg.com
# Rev. Jesse Jackson meets with laid-off workers - CLTV, WGN News 9, Chicago Tribune
# Jackson: Republic Windows sit-in is the dawn of a "new movement" - Chi-Town Daily News
# Laid-off workers occupy Chicago factory, seek pay - Reuters
# Laid-off Republic workers refuse to leave - Chicago Sun-Times
# Workers at Republic Windows continue sit-in after company closes - Chicago Tribune
# Laid-Off Workers At Factory Find Outside Support - CBS 2 Chicago
# Workers' protest gains support Sunday - ABC 7 Chicago ( with video )
# Sit-in Day 3: Rev. Jackson Meets With Workers - NBC Chicago
# Day 2 For Workers At Shuttered Window Plant - CBS 2 Chicago
# Workers stage sit-in over money owed to them - Chi Town Daily News
# Workers protest layoffs ABC 7 Chicago (WLS)
# "We Aren't Animals" - Fired Employees Stage Sit-In - NBC Chicago
# Plant Closing Leads to Sit-In - Chicago Public Radio
# Republic workers say they're not leaving without pay - Chi Town Daily News
# Workers occupy closed factory - UPI
# Laid-off workers occupy factory in Chicago - Chicago Tribune (AP)
# Republic Windows, workers at odds over closing Chicago Business (Crains)
# Laid-off workers furious as bank pulls Chicago plant's credit - Agence France Presse
# Angry laid-off workers occupy factory in Chicago - AP Wire
# Angry laid-off workers occupy factory in Chicago - Updated AP story with photos
# After Layoffs, Workers Stay at a Factory in Protest - New York Times
# Angry Workers Camp Out in Chicago Factory After Layoff - huliq news
# Chicago factory occupied - Socialist Worker Online
# The 1930s Really Are Here Again: Workers Occupy Chicago Window Plant - The Activist
# Chicago Factory Occupied - UE Members in Chicago Need Our Help! - MR Zine ( Monthly Review online)
# Chicago: Workers occupy plant - Fight Back! News
# Workers occupy factory - demand justice - People's Weekly World
# Making a new New Deal: Sitdown Strike in Chicago - The Nation


from the New York Times (.com)

After Layoffs, Workers Stay at a Factory in Protest
www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/07chicago.html

[ckaihatsu]

THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 824-1072
email: The [email protected]>
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
-----

Dear Friends and Supporters of The Organizer Newspaper

Yesterday (Dec. 7), we had a team of correspondents from The Organizer newspaper at the Republic Windows and Doors occupied plant in Chicago. Our interviews and photos will be published in the next issue of our paper. (If you wish to receive a sample copy of our now-monthly newspaper, please send us a note.)

In the interim, we would like to urge everyone to actively support this struggle -- the first major (and exciting) struggle against the direct consequences of the Wall Street bailout by a sector of the U.S. trade union movement.

For updates and how you can help, please go to the United Electrical (UE) workers' union website at:

http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=427

Contributions are needed urgently. You can make a PayPal donation by going to the link on the right side of the UE home page. Just click the 'Donate' button.

You can also send your financial contribution by regular mail to: UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, UE Western Region, 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607. Make your check payable to UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund.

Thanks, in advance, for your support to this effort.

In solidarity,

Editorial Board,
The Organizer Newspaper

------


Below are some links to ongoing news coverage of this story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28084616/

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/republic.windows.sitin.2.880850.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,463030,00.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-workersoccupyfact,0,1928458.story

http://www.france24.com/en/20081206-laid-off-workers-furious-bank-pulls-chicago-plants-credit
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/republic-windows-doors-120508.html

[KurtFF8]

ckaihatsu, you haven't provided us with enough information about what's going on, way told hold out on us and not contribute anything about these events!

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, you haven't provided us with enough information about what's going on, way told hold out on us and not contribute anything about these events!


Your contribution of humor-oriented verbiage is hereby acknowledged and will be considered in full. We -- meaning me -- will be discussing your submission at length and we hope to have an official reply, in like manner, for your consumption shortly. We appreciate your advanced facility with ironic, off-the-cuff comments and we look forward to working with your organization into the future, going forward. Please have a pleasant day.


= )

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Statement-Republic-Windows-Doors/story.aspx?guid=%7BADF76E34-99F2-4C4A-A977-C8FB05EEAABA%7D

PRESS RELEASE


Statement from Republic Windows & Doors


Last update: 5:01 p.m. EST Dec. 8, 2008

CHICAGO, Dec 08, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The management of Republic Windows & Doors today announced the following chronology of the company's discussions with its lender Bank of America."

10/16/08 a- Republic presents plan for "orderly" wind down including ceasing
manufacturing in January 2009. INFORMS BANK OF AMERICA OF POSSIBLE
WARN ACT NOTICE ISSUES AND VACATION PAY.

10/15/08 a- Informed Bank of America that Republic had a 10/24/08R buyer for
the existing Note for ±$3.0M, discount of $1.5M.

10/15/08 a- Offer rejected by Bank of America stating they believed they were
"over" collateralized.

10/15/08 a- Bank of America demands plans for "orderly" wind down Republic.

10/18/08 a- Bank of America rejects plan and demands a shorter wind down
period.

10/27/08 a- Republic responds with a new plan to cease operations January 2009.

10/29/08 a- Bank of America rejects plan.

11/25/08 a- Republic requests permission from Bank of America to issue
vacation pay to all employees.

11/26/08 a- Bank rejects Company request to make vacation pay.


Conditions Precedent to "Current"

02/2007 -

07/2008 a- Republic obtains equity infusion from a capital fund which over
time ultimately grows to ±$11,000,000. This capital is used to
retire existing secured debt of ±$8,000,000 and other senior lenders
as well as finance ongoing operations and cash "burn".


02/2007 a- New secured debt is obtained from Bank of America.
a- Sales Remodeling New Construction Total
(in millions $)
2008 34.0 6.3 40.3
2007 34.4 17.9 52.3
2006 31.8 26.1 57.9
2005 38.9 29.5 68.4
2004 48.0 22.3 70.3
2003 45.1 22.6 67.7
a- No one could have predicted the unprecedented drop in new
construction sales due to the unprecedented economic conditions.


History

1998 a- Republic moves to new headquarters on Goose Island.

2002 a- Company reports first loss in history.
a- Loss history
2008/Q3 $5.7mm
2007 $5.5 mm
2006 $7.2 mm
Results from Previous Management Team
2005 $21.1 mm
2004 $5.7 mm
2003 $3.7 mm

2006-07 a- Richard Gillman, previously a minority shareholder buys out all
other partners assumes all debt obligations and adds ±$2,200,000 of
his personal funds to add capital to the business; installs new COO
from outside of the company.

2006-07 a- Fixed expenses are reduced $18.9 mm, or 47%.

02/2007 a- Productivity increased ± 30%.

02/2007 a- Gillman secures new capital.

11/2008 a- Gillman family forms Echo Windows, LLC.


Despite inheriting a company bloated with overhead and lacking any type of manufacturing discipline and/or productivity, the company makes significant improvements only to encounter and unprecedented decline in new home construction, which led to a decline of company sales to new construction of 80%. This placed the company in the impossible position of not having the ability to further reduce fixed costs, coupled with severe constrictions in the capital debt markets and an unwillingness of the current debt holder to continue funding the operations."

SOURCE: Republic Windows & Doors

Lake Effect Communications, LLC
Thomas Figel
312-223-9536 x 301, cell: 312-933-9107
or
Lake Effect Communications, LLC
Spencer Maus
312-223-9536 x 307, cell: 312-498-3478


Copyright Business Wire 2008 End of Story

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Bank-America-Issues-Statement-Regarding/story.aspx?guid=%7BB8500097-C33C-4F71-B890-F0C1E841BF21%7D

PRESS RELEASE


Bank of America Issues Statement Regarding Republic Windows and Doors


Last update: 4:31 p.m. EST Dec. 8, 2008

CHICAGO, Dec 08, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Bank of America today issued the following statement regarding Republic Windows and Doors:

"We agree with the statements of public officials that Republic Windows and Doors should do all it can to honor its obligations to its employees and minimize the impact of failure on those employees.
We are reaching out to the management and ownership of the company to see what they can do to help resolve this issue.

As a creditor of the company, we continue to honor all of our agreements with the company and have provided the maximum amount of funding we can under the terms of our agreement.

By any objective measure, Republic Windows and Doors is unable to operate profitably given the challenges of the current economic climate and its industry. Public statements by management of the company have made this clear.

When a company faces such a dire situation, its lender is not empowered to direct the company's management how to manage its affairs and what obligations should be paid. Such decisions belong to the management and owners of the company.

Bank of America has worked with the company and shared our concerns about the company's situation and its operations for the past several months. It is unfortunate that the company has been unable to reverse its declining circumstances."

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk-management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving more than 59 million consumer and small business relationships with more than 6,100 retail banking offices, more than 18,000 ATMs and award-winning online banking with more than 25 million active users. Bank of America offers industry leading support to more than 4 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients in more than 150 countries and has relationships with 99 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 83 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Bank of America Corporation stock (BAC:

bank of america corporation com

News, chart, profile, more
Last: 17.84+2.60+17.06%

4:01pm 12/08/2008

BAC 17.84, +2.60, +17.1%) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

http://www.bankofamerica.com

[ckaihatsu]

Indeed.

Beyond the "objective factors" that much of the Left
leadership hides behind as an excuse -- as if the objective
circumstances haven't favored the working-class for 100-odd
years, in spite of the postwar con-job -- the issue at this
point (and for a long, long time) has actually revolved
around the *subjective* factors of _class-consciousness_.
And in fact it has been the utter failure -- for whatever
reason -- of the Left leadership and its party/group cadre
to mobilize the laboring masses, which is essentially behind
what you point out below.

The solution to our awful predicament begins -- beyond mere
'mea culpas' which have seldom been forthcoming (except from
the likes of Hugo Chávez) -- **with openly breaking with
the bourgeois system in _every_ way**. Even if this means
*personal hardship* (beyond what people are or think they're
already suffering, that is). However, the story of much of
the Left in the postwar period is a wretched one of
rationalizations, demoralization, confusion -- and outright
class-collaboration.

I really wish more people would get beyond their not
insubstantial-yet-petty ego lives, and actually find out
what people like me have figgered out about this. But I
won't hold my breath. People DO have the tendency to carry
on doggedly, no matter what. Until they can't anymore, that
is. But even Parties and Movements can make allowances for
such human weakness. They just have to WANT to -- and know
how to go about it too.

First thing:
*Openly* call for Socialism. And that means revolution
against Capitalism.
It's not optional.

Study and understand Dialectical-Materialism.
It's not optional. Surprise, surprise.
Thought it was silly and unnecessary, right...?
Well, you've been fooled. You don't know how much...


- -- grok.

[KurtFF8]

Your contribution of humor-oriented verbiage is hereby acknowledged and will be considered in full. We -- meaning me -- will be discussing your submission at length and we hope to have an official reply, in like manner, for your consumption shortly. We appreciate your advanced facility with ironic, off-the-cuff comments and we look forward to working with your organization into the future, going forward. Please have a pleasant day.


= )

:) But in a non-sarcastic way: thanks for all the links.


This event is quite exciting. Although it's interesting to see just how quick the liberal establishment is jumping on it in an attempt to co-opt it. Perhaps they're aware of how UE is organized and are trying to avoid allowing UE any opportunity to take radical steps and do something like take over the factory for good. (Although as was pointed out at PoFo, such an action wouldn't last long, although it would sent a message to labor in general).

I wonder if the workers of UAW are being influenced by this at all and if they're considering any actions of this sort.

[ckaihatsu]

This event is quite exciting. Although it's interesting to see just how quick the liberal establishment is jumping on it in an attempt to co-opt it.


The liberal establishment has *** ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE GOING ON *** -- if it weren't for this they'd have to publish front-page stories about puppies and bunnies.

We're talking * zero * -- clue-free -- blank slate -- "where's the next circus" kind of mentality here....

[Sendo]

Awesome. :thumbup1:

I have a checking account with Bank of America. Damn......:(

On the plus side, though, BoA has withdrawn its credit from coal companies who do mountain top blasting, which is severely threatening the ability of Appalachia to support life.

I wouldn't get mad at BoA in any case. It's not like they're as bad as AIG. The fault goes more with the employers who won't run factories unless it's the most profitable thing they can do. As the examples in Argentina have shown, worker-run factories can get up and running again because they're much more efficient, all while having higher wages.

Well, okay, we can get mad at BoA...but I don't advocate the recent spate of scapegoatism...as if the bankers were only more responsible, then capitalism would be smooth sailing.

[BIG BROTHER]

Well I consider this a beautiful thing, lets hope this is just the start, and that the working class of the U.S. wakes up and realizes its own mighty strength.

BTW all those that can go there to show support DO IT NOW!

[Delirium]

I'm wondering why this is getting positive (if any) coverage in the mainstream press? Even Obama came out with limited support for the occupation. It seems dysfunctional for the media to be covering this! I wonder what their motive is?

[ckaihatsu]

[anticapdiscuss] fwd: REPUBLIC BOUGHT NON UNION IOWA WINDOW FACTORY...

Bad news: not only did the owners of Republic buy another factory in Iowa where they apparently began sending equipment, but the slimey words coming out of today's negotiations scream: warning! Will the owners/their Bank of America backers get away with shutting this plant down to relocate the work and screw the union workers?

The only alternative to a possible sellout deal will be concrete solidarity- people coming down, food, money, and other solidarity action. [...]
---------------------------------------------------
from the CHI-TOWN DAILY NEWS:

Republic's owner linked to Iowa window factory

BY PETER SACHS

December 08, 2008 | 7:18 PM

A company managed by the wife of Republic Windows and Doors chief Richard Gillman recently purchased an Iowa plant that manufactures similar products, according to public records.

Gillman has come under fire in recent days for abruptly closing Republic's Goose Island plant and refusing to provide workers there with the 60 days notice and pay required by federal labor law.

Echo Windows and Doors was created two weeks ago and lists Sharon Gillman as its manager, according copies of records obtained by the Daily News from the Iowa Secretary of the State. According to Cook County property tax records, Sharon Gillman is Richard Gillman's wife.

The couple owns a $2.6 million Oak Street condo, according to property records.

The Gillimans could not be reached for comment today. But this afternoon, Richard Gillman released a statement confirming the creation of the new company.

Also, Amy Zimmerman, who has served as Republic’s marketing director, is now listed as the contact on the newly registered echowindows.com domain name. She refused comment today.

Republic officials have blamed the shutdown on Bank of America's refusal to provide continued financing.

Republic employees have staged a sit- in at the company's plant since Friday, and have enlisted numerous politicians in their cause.

Earlier today, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said the state would stop doing business with the bank until it gives Republic the money it needs to stay afloat. Local elected officials, as well as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and President-elect Barack Obama, have urged the company to give the workers their 60 days of pay.

The Iowa plant was formerly operated by TRACO, a window company headquartered in Pennsylvania. Traco confirmed the sale to Echo in a news release last week.

Workers at the plant say Echo officials visited the plant on Thursday, informing them of the sale and shutting down production briefly to do a full inventory of the factory.

“Everybody seemed like they were just kind of confused the day that I was there,” says Herald Wiltshire, an employee there.

Two weeks ago, Traco switched from running two production shifts per day to just one, citing slowing20orders for their windows, Wiltshire said. About that same time, the company announced layoffs at another one of its factories, in Bainbridge, Ga., the Post-Searchlight newspaper reported.

But on Friday, the Red Oak plant started up its second shift again, following the announcement from Echo, Wiltshire says.

Tagged: Goose Island

[which doctor]

I'm wondering why this is getting positive (if any) coverage in the mainstream press? Even Obama came out with limited support for the occupation. It seems dysfunctional for the media to be covering this! I wonder what their motive is?
They're giving it coverage and support because they know if they try to suppress it, things could spread. They are co-opting the action and trying to make it one of their own. The politicians in Illinois supporting them will use their leverage to give some concessions to the workers at Republic, so they can leave the factory and this can be ended.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2008/12/nc-solidarity-with-chicago-plant-occupation.htm


North Carolina: Solidarity with Chicago plant occupation


By Josh Sykes

Charlotte, NC - Chanting, "The banks got bailed out, and the workers got sold out!" and "Bail out the workers and not the banks!" more than 20 people gathered here for a spirited rally in front of the Bank of America corporate headquarters. Called by UE Local 150, the action was in solidarity with the workers of UE 1110 who have occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago. Participants marched together into the office building to deliver a letter to Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America chairman and CEO, demanding that the Bank of America use some of the $25 billion bailout funds to provide credit to save the jobs at the Chicago plant.

__________________________________________________ ___
Fight Back News Service | www.fightbacknews.org

If you received this from somebody else, you can subscribe to Fight Back News Service at
http://www.fightbacknews.org/fbns/?p=subscribe&id=1

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/pers-d09.shtml


A great step forward


9 December 2008

This perspective is available as a PDF leaflet

The occupation of Republic Windows and Doors by 250 workers in Chicago, Illinois is an important step forward and one that deserves the full support of the working class throughout the country and internationally.

For the first time since the onset of the economic crisis, a section of the working class is taking an independent stand and resisting the corporate assault on jobs and living standards, which is claiming thousands of new victims each day.

These workers are displaying enormous courage. They refused to be thrown out of the factory when management moved to shut down the plant last Friday, after giving the workers just three days notice. They have insisted they will not leave the plant until management pays the severance and vacation pay owed to each worker.

This action has a powerful objective meaning. The same conditions that have driven these workers into struggle are affecting millions throughout the US and around the world. Such struggles are going to erupt more and more frequently as the economic crisis compels workers to act collectively to assert their own class interests.

In that sense, this struggle recalls the experience of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the sit-down strikes by rubber and auto workers sparked a wave of mass industrial struggles throughout the US.

Like working people everywhere, the workers in Chicago are confronting a battle not just against one employer, but against the entire capitalist economic and political system. Republic was forced to close its doors when Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, cut off the company's line of credit. Bank of America was a recipient of more than $25 billion in the government's multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street.

For workers losing their jobs, homes and life savings there has been no bailout. But for the banking executives and speculators whose recklessness and greed have brought the entire economy to the brink of collapse, the government has found unlimited resources. This only underscores the class interests defended by both big business parties—the Democrats as well as the Republicans.

Though the workers have shown enormous determination, the struggle has also revealed political limitations. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) has sought to contain the fight to appeals to the Democratic Party and the banks. The union has brought in political figures to smother the struggle, including Jesse Jackson, who has a long history of defusing working class struggles.

Moreover, the demands being raised fall far short of the needs of the workers themselves. What is needed is not just severance pay or longer notice before workers are thrown out of their jobs, but a struggle to stop plant closings and defend the jobs of all working people. Such a struggle requires a direct appeal to the working class throughout Chicago, the US and internationally, and the forging of a new political movement of the working class to fight for an alternative to the capitalist profit system.

The eruption of this struggle has surprised and frightened the government. Cognizant of the growing social anger over the naked class bias of the Wall Street bailout, the media and politicians have, up to now, professed sympathy for the workers. President-elect Barack Obama and Illinois Governor Blagojevich have issued statements of support to pressure Bank of America and Republic to resolve the crisis before it becomes an example for other embattled workers.

Democratic Party officials helped organize a meeting Monday between Bank of America, Republic, and the UE in an attempt to hash out a quick settlement.

But the proverbial genie has been let out of the bottle and it cannot be put back in. No matter how this struggle is concluded, the example of Chicago is going to give other people ideas.

The plant occupation is a demonstration of the social power of the working class. These 250 workers have shown more resolve than the United Auto Workers union, with its millions of dollars in dues money and billion-dollar strike fund. The UAW has completely capitulated to the job-cutting and concessions demands of the auto companies and Congress, without even the pretense of a fight.

The contrast underscores that the lack of mass resistance to the policies of the corporations and banks is not due to a lack of opposition in the working class, of which there is plenty. Rather, the responsibility lies with the union bureaucracy, which has spent the last thirty years doing everything it can to strangle the initiative and resistance of workers.

All of the skeptics and opportunists who have said it is impossible to fight for socialist consciousness in the working class have been proven wrong again. Workers are once again asserting their own interests in a way that implicitly challenges the system of capitalist private property. As the economic crisis deepens and more and more struggles erupt, the question that will arise in the minds of millions of working people will be: What class should control the factories and financial resources of society and who should make the economic decisions?

Whatever illusions workers may have in the incoming Obama administration, that will not stop them from fighting. As workers enter into struggle, more and more will come to see the necessity of dispensing with such illusions and seeking a political alternative to the two capitalist parties.

What is now posed is the need for a national and international struggle based on a socialist perspective.

Jerry White

[ckaihatsu]

[Actual follow-up on the blank checks to corporate America?!!! Hmmmmm....]



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agOFtufX.FXQ&refer=home


Illinois Threat to Bank of America Is Dangerous, Critics Say


By David Mildenberg and Brian Louis

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s threat to halt the state’s dealings with Bank of America Corp. over a shut-down factory in Chicago extends a “dangerous” trend of politicians meddling with commerce, a former general counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, yesterday said the biggest U.S. retail bank won’t get any more state business unless it restores credit to Republic Windows & Doors, whose workers are staging a sit-in. John Douglas, an attorney with Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker in Atlanta, said Blagojevich and Senator Christopher Dodd -- who called on General Motors Corp. to fire Chief Executive Rick Wagoner -- can’t tell companies how to run their business.

“This is a very dangerous thing,” said Douglas, who was at the FDIC from 1987 to 1989 and has since represented financial institutions including Bank of America. “There becomes an expectation that these government officials have some say over what the institution does,” he said in an interview.

The Illinois governor met Republic Windows & Doors employees who remained at the factory since Dec. 5, after Bank of America canceled a credit line. The members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union have won support from politicians including President-elect Barack Obama, who said the 250 workers are justified in demanding benefits and pay.

“They’re absolutely right,” Obama, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat from Illinois last month, said over the weekend. “These workers, if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments.”

Not Empowered

Bank of America isn’t empowered to tell a company how to manage its business, spokeswoman Julie Westermann said yesterday. Republic is unable to operate profitably in the current economy, she said.

“Bank of America has worked with the company and shared our concerns about the company’s situation and its operations for the past several months,” she said. “It is unfortunate that the company has been unable to reverse its declining circumstances.”

Robert Topel, a labor and economics professor at the University of Chicago, said it’s “just silly” that a governor or member of Congress would seek to “micro-manage” a business.

“What does Chris Dodd know about running an auto company?” Topel asked. “Is Bank of America supposed to pick and choose which line of credit they want to keep open based on political pressure? It’s not Bank of America’s obligation to make sure the employer has funds to pay its employees.”

Dodd and Wagoner

Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, made his comment Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said Wagoner should be replaced if GM is to receive federal aid. U.S. lawmakers may vote this week on a $15 billion rescue of U.S. automakers.

Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley said he’ll introduce an ordinance to block the state’s biggest county from doing business with Bank of America. “I’m usually cautious, but this is an extraordinary example at an extraordinary time,” Quigley said in an interview.

Commercial banks have restricted lending as ripples from the financial crisis that began on Wall Street widen into the broader economy. More than half a million U.S. jobs were lost in November and economists have drawn a direct link between the deepening recession and the seizure in credit markets which has so far resulted in $981 billion in writedowns and losses globally.

Republic told the bank on Oct. 16 it planned to cease manufacturing in January after losing $5.7 million during the first nine months of this year and a total of $12.7 million in 2007 and 2006, according to a press release.

‘Impossible Position’

The company faced “the impossible position of not having the ability to further reduce fixed costs, coupled with severe constrictions in the capital debt markets and an unwillingness of the current debt holder to continue funding the operations,” Republic said in the release.

Workers and supporters, warmed by a fire roaring in a trash bin, kept a vigil last night at the plant on Chicago’s north side. Signs mocked Bank of America, with one reading: “You got bailed out. We got sold out.”

Bank of America has received $15 billion from the U.S. Treasury as part of its effort to boost capital, while Merrill Lynch & Co. is receiving $10 billion. Bank of America is buying Merrill, the world’s largest securities brokerage. The taxpayer funds were intended to help Republic Windows and other companies preserve jobs, Blagojevich said at a news conference.

Ricardo Caceres, 39, and father of two, was among the Republic workers outside the factory last night. About 100 volunteers, bundled against the cold, distributed bags of food for the employee sit-in inside the plant.

Caceres worked at Republic for 15 years assembling windows. He said workers were brought to the cafeteria at lunchtime last week, and told they would soon be out of work. “Everyone was in shock,” when the plant closing was announced, said Caceres, who lives in Chicago.

The employees are heartened by the outpouring of support from politicians and people in the community, Caceres said. “I never imagined this.”

To contact the reporters on this story: David Mildenberg in Charlotte at [email protected]; Brian Louis in Chicago at [email protected]

Last Updated: December 9, 2008 00:00 EST

[Delirium]

They're giving it coverage and support because they know if they try to suppress it, things could spread. They are co-opting the action and trying to make it one of their own. The politicians in Illinois supporting them will use their leverage to give some concessions to the workers at Republic, so they can leave the factory and this can be ended.

I totally agree that they are trying to neutralize the radical nature of the action, but it just seems like a mistake on their part to give it so much attention. Usually the co-option goes on after the fact.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Bank-America-Offers-Republic-Funds/story.aspx?guid=%7B355A9E05-EA1C-43E4-A4BA-EB8113B8C498%7D


Bank of America Offers Republic Funds to Address Employee Claims


Last update: 2:55 p.m. EST Dec. 9, 2008

CHICAGO, Dec 09, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Bank of America today sent a letter to Republic Windows & Doors LLC indicating that the bank is prepared to provide a limited amount of additional loans to Republic to help fund a comprehensive resolution of Employee Claims.

Bank of America expressed concern in the letter about Republic's failure to pay their employees the Employee Claims to which they are legally entitled.

Bank of America is prepared to make these additional loans despite the fact that Bank of America is not obligated to pay Republic's employees or make additional loans to Republic.

Because Bank of America has no direct relationship with Republic's employees, Bank of America must rely on Republic and its management to negotiate with the Union and Republic's employees regarding the Employee Claims.

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk-management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving more than 59 million consumer and small business relationships with more than 6,100 retail banking offices, more than 18,000 ATMs and award-winning online banking with more than 25 million active users. Bank of America offers industry leading support to more than 4 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients in more than 150 countries and has relationships with 99 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 83 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Bank of America Corporation stock (BAC:
bank of america corporation com
News, chart, profile, more
Last: 17.04-0.80-4.48%
3:17pm 12/09/2008
BAC 17.04, -0.80, -4.5%) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

http://www.bankofamerica.com

SOURCE Bank of America

http://www.bankofamerica.com

Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved End of Story

[ckaihatsu]

Gov. Blagojevich and Developing News about the Factory Occupation

Ken Barrios <[email protected]>


All the politicians are probably being spied on, videotaped, recorded, etc. all the time.


If not by their colleagues, then by other interested parties.


And they're all corrupt.


With that said...

The other day Rod Blagojevich came out in favor of the workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory.


"The governor announced that state agencies would suspend their business with Bank of America (BoA)..."

This is major.


This is a huge step over what Obama and Jessie Jackson said, also in favor of the workers.


What Rod did was financially choke BoA, as well as embarrass them publicly.


This was a major stand IN DEFENSE of workers, and AGAINST the abuses of the ruling class.


Seems like someone in the ruling class didn't like how far he went, and decided to have him called out on his own hypocrisy.

Earlier this afternoon, more cops also started swarming around the occupied factory.


The story of the occupation has made it to international news, so we'll see how hard the ruling class in Chicago feels they can/can not come down on those workers...

Just some cute little commentary.

Below is a follow up to what has been developing with the story of the Factory Occupation at Republic Windows and Doors.


kenken
--------------------------------------------

http://socialistworker. org/2008/12/09/raising-the-stakes-at-republic
Labor [1]

Raising the stakes at Republic

Lee Sustar and Nicole Colson look at another hectic day in the growing solidarity movement for workers occupying the Republic Windows & Doors plant in Chicago.


December 9, 2008

DAY FOUR of the Republic Windows & Doors factory occupation in Chicago saw another surge in labor solidarity--plus a rare boost from the media and politicians trying to outdo one other in showing support for the struggle.


Just hours after the Chicago Tribune published a December 8 report apparently verifying workers' suspicions that production had been moved from their now-closed factory to a nonunion facility in Iowa, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrived at the plant just north and west of downtown Chicago.


The governor announced that state agencies would suspend their business with Bank of America (BoA), which triggered the closure of Republic's plant by cutting off its line of credit.


"During these times of economic turmoil, we must ensure that workers' rights are protected," Blagojevich said, adding that the Illinois Department of Labor would file a complaint in federal court if negotiations between the factory's owners, the workers' union and BoA officials didn't provide the approximately $1.5 million that workers are owned under federal and state law as well as their union contract.


The 250 workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, are demanding that BoA either resume making loans to Republic to reopen the plant or help the company make good on its obligations to workers. The workers are angry that BoA received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout, but won't lend to viable companies.


Blagojevich vowed to help. "We're going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers," he said.


Also on hand was Sen. Dick Durbin. "Over the last several weeks, we have been debating in Washington how to spend hundreds of billions of dollars," he told reporters afterward. "We have been sending billions of dollars to banks like Bank of America. The reason we sent them the money was to tell them they have to loan this money to companies just like Republic.
"

Soon after the politicians' limos left the plant, a scene more familiar to labor activists took shape. Amid the forest of mobile TV satellite feed dishes, some 20 burly members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 installed giant inflatable rats on either side of the plant entrance and took up positions near the door.


Local 150 Business Manager/President Jim Sweeney explained the motivation for this delegation in one word: "Solidarity." Why the large delegation? "We heard they [management] were going to try to move them out," he explained, adding that his locals' members would be on hand for the duration of the occupation.


For Sweeney, the struggle "summarizes where we are as a movement," he said. "We've come full circle. Seven percent of the workforce is unionized [in the private sector], and we're back to sit-down strikes like in Flint, Michigan," he said, referring to the famous factory occupation of 1936-37 that forced General Motors to recognize the United Auto Workers.


"We need a catalyst," Sweeney said. "And this may be what starts it for the American worker again.
"

Alongside the operating engineers, a delegation of more than a dozen nurses from Cook County Stroger Hospital stood behind their banner, carrying signs in support of the Republic workers and chanting, "The workers united will never be divided.
"

"This is important, because this is a form of union-busting," said Diane Ellis, the chief steward for the National Nurses Organizing Committee at Stroger. "Their contract was violated. Workers' rights were violated, when the company just shut them out. It's happening to them today, and it could happen to us tomorrow. You've got the fat cats walking away with the money and leaving all the workers here with nothing.
"

As the chanting resumed, union members, community activists and students threaded their way through the reporters crowding the building foyer, making now-routine deliveries of food and beverages. Cameras crowded the inner door to the plant, as journalists strained to capture images of workers seated near stacks of recently manufactured windows as a handful of children played nearby.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MEANWHILE, ANOTHER group of politicians assembled to turn up the heat on BoA.


At a press conference at City Hall, Alderman Ricardo Muñoz announced a proposed ordinance that would shift city funds from Bank of America to other banks, require City Council approval for any BoA underwriting or marketing of city bonds, and force the bank to bring any proposed zoning changes on property directly to City Council.


"Under the law, the City Council has the authority and responsibility to take into account the interests of Chicago and its residents when deciding which banks to do business with," Muñoz said. "Bank of America profits handsomely from the business it gets from the City and other governments. We have a right to demand that workers are treated fairly.
"

Following a three-hour meeting on Monday afternoon between union, company and bank representatives, it was announced that no settlement had been reached and the sit-in would continue. A new round of talks was slated for the next day--and if the workers don't get satisfaction, a big protest is planed for 12 noon the following day at BoA's Chicago-area headquarters.


Will BoA buckle under the pressure? "Obviously, there's tremendous public support for the workers here, and for the sense that workers need to have jobs," said Carl Rosen, western region president for UE. "I think there is a lot of pressure on the bank with regard to this, but banks have their own agendas, and they're not the peoples' agenda." He added, "Anyone who has the ability to let Bank of America know they want something done should go ahead and do that.
"

Activists did do that in the largely Mexican-American community of Little Village. After a picket at BoA's large 26th Street branch organized by the March 10 immigrant rights coalition and other groups, participants made their case against BoA in a press conference.


According to labor organizer and journalist Jorge Mújica, immigrants rights activists supported the Republic workers not only because they are mostly Latino immigrants, but because they are literally fighting the same institutions.


"There are dozens of shops that have closed down in the last month and a half," Mújica said. "Why? Because of the same reason--lack of money, lack of credit, lack of resources....So we are going to demand from Bank of America to keep open the line of credit from Republic, but also to open up the credit for 26th Street, so we don't keep losing more jobs.
"

Ricardo Caceres, a 15-year worker at the plant and a union shop steward, used the press conference to remind the media that the boss shut the plant on two day's notice as the holidays loomed--and to express gratitude to the solidarity movement that's sprung up. "I want to say to your organizations, unions and communities, thank you so much for everything--for the food, and your support," he said.


One of the speakers at the press conference was Rev. José Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission, a church centrally involved in the local movement against immigration raids and deportations.


"People are losing their jobs because businesses are closing, and the banks won't support the needs of small business and the workers," he said as he walked the picket line. "They just want to support themselves. And this we see also with the government, with the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It's about saving Wall Street and the banks, but it's not saving the peoples' economy.
"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR REPUBLIC'S managers, the objective seems to be saving themselves at workers' expense. Confirmation came on Monday that--as workers suspected--Republic is not, in fact, shutting down operations, but planning to move production to Iowa under a new name, "Echo Windows & Doors.
"

Reports indicate that Echo would be nonunion, pay only $9 an hour, and offer workers limited benefits and no vacation pay for the first three years--a drastic cut compared to the average $14-an-hour wage and health and retirement benefits that Chicago Republic workers had been getting.


According to the Chicago Tribune:

People who apparently have ties to the financially strapped Republic Windows formed a limited liability corporation in Illinois last month, Echo Windows & Doors, that has bought a similar plant in western Iowa.


Sharon Gillman, who shares an address with Republic President and CEO Rich Gillman, is listed as an officer of Echo Windows & Doors LLC, which was incorporated in Illinois on November 18, according to secretary of state records.


Neither she nor Rich Gillman could be reached for comment on Sunday. A secretary who answered the phone at the Iowa plant purchased by Echo said Rich Gillman was not in on Sunday, and that she did not know when he would be in.


An "echowindows. com" Internet domain has been registered, but no content has been placed on the site. The administrative contact on the domain registration is Amy Zimmerman--the same name as the vice president of sales and marketing at Republic...

Echo Windows officials told employees at the former TRACO manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa, on Thursday that the workforce would be doubled from the current 50 employees because they have production orders lined up.


None of this surprises Melvin Maclin, vice president of UE Local 1110, and Ron Bender, a union shop steward.


"I don't think they want to stay here, period," Bender said. Maclin added, "It was never the owner's plan to save the plant. And the bank was aware of it. I don't know that for a fact, but it seemed like the bank was aware of what's going on. They were just running a game.
"

Whatever Republics' owners and BoA had planned last week, it's a different world now. By trying to add to the misery of laid-off workers by stealing their severance pay, they've managed to demonstrate to the world the inequity and double standards of the Wall Street bailout.


And now they've discovered that workers are capable of demonstrating something else--resolve, struggle and solidarity in what has become a classic battle for workers' rights.

[chegitz guevara]

JusticeFirst Florida

An initiative of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism/Florida

1005 S.R. 84, Ste 116, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315

http://www.answerfl.org (http://www.answerfl.org/) ◊ [email protected]



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Contact:

Miami: Marc Luzietti 954/496-0162

Fort Lauderdale: John Peter Daly 954/707-0155

Orlando: Miguel Rodriguez 407/855-7054

Bail Out Workers—Not Banks! Stop Plants Closings!

Wednesday Protest to Support Republic Windows and Doors Workers in Chicago!

Location and Time:

Actions in support of the workers will begin at 5:00 PM at the
following locations:

Miami: 100 Southeast 2nd Street, Miami, FL

Fort Lauderdale: 3800 W. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL

Orlando: 4725 S Kirkman Rd, Orlando, FL

ANSWER Florida, Justice First, and the Miami May Day Alliance is
calling for actions against Bank of America to build solidarity with
the workers of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, who have staged
a sit-down strike to keep their jobs. This is an all-important
struggle; millions of workers are getting the shaft from their bosses,
who are using the economic crisis to steal their benefits and
pensions. These workers are fighting back.

Over 200 workers have occupied their workplace factory at Republic
Windows and Doors in Chicago, after the company shut down the plant,
claiming lack of funds to pay the workers their back pay, vacation and
other benefits, or to give 60 days' notice as required by federal law.

The plant closing was precipitated by Bank of America's refusal to
extend any more credit to the company, despite the fact that B of A
has received $25 billion in bailout funds. These billions were
supposed to help relieve credit shortages and help sustain jobs.
Instead, the banks are using taxpayer dollars to merge into larger
banks. Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase are the two banks that
invest in Republic Windows and Doors. The workers are owed an average
of 75 days' pay and vacation. Companies are bound by federal law to
either give 60 days' notice with pay, before a plant closing or layoff
of 50 or more workers.

It is reported that Republic Windows and Doors is planning to move its
plant to Iowa because of cheaper labor costs, and to get out of union
obligations with the United Electrical Workers Union. Workers across
the country are paying a heavy price for the bank's and corporations'
theft. It's time for the bankers and companies to pay, NOT THE
WORKERS!

[Guerrilla22]

I agree with NHIA/CDL, the problem here is that they are not trying to take over the factory, nor are they trying to start or spread a movement of worker take overs. They simply are sitting in, untill they get paid their severence and compensated for unused vacation days. The papers have declared that the workers have "won," because they got Bank of America to agree to issue Republic Windows more credit so that they will be able to pay off the workers. All they've really won is a bit of money and the right to take another job where they will once again be exploited by the owners or end up in the unemployment line. :(

[DancingLarry]

You don't start with a revolution. In a situation like the US, where working class people have been beat down and broken and losing on all fronts for decades--decades!--getting a win in the first thing. Anyone who has ever done any real organizing knows that the first thing you try to do with a fledgling organization or movement is get a win. Why? Because it convinces people they aren't powerless, both those in your group, and others, skeptical, looking on. People have become defeated by defeat, it will take victories in, yes, something less than revolution, to rebuild class militance. But it looks like a win is at hand. The key is to now move it forwardlearn the lessons of what worked and why, and start replicating the effect. Because at a certain point in time, a quantitavie change in the number of workers struggles, particularly if they are producing wins, becomes a qualitative change, where the working class as a qwhole begins to sense its own power. And THAT'S the time us radicals can start upping the ante.

[synthesis]

I'm wondering why this is getting positive (if any) coverage in the mainstream press? Even Obama came out with limited support for the occupation. It seems dysfunctional for the media to be covering this! I wonder what their motive is?

Limited support?

He said:

“I think they’re absolutely right (emphasis mine) and understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”

That doesn't really sound like he's hedging his bets.

Or do you mean that he only supports it in his rhetoric?

The Illinois governor said:

"We are going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers. And it isn't just lending them moral support, but it's putting pressure on financial institutions like the Bank of America as well as making sure that we have our court system enforce the federal laws so these workers are getting what they're entitled to under the law and under what is the right thing to do."

Of course, they only represent the tendency of social democrats to ameliorate the most damaging consequences of capitalism, but what else would you expect?

In the short term, at least, the workers will be better off with their support.

edit: Hypocrisy is another tendency of social democrats. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/politics/10Illinois.html?_r=1&hp

[synthesis]

On the plus side, though, BoA has withdrawn its credit from coal companies who do mountain top blasting, which is severely threatening the ability of Appalachia to support life.

I wouldn't get mad at BoA in any case. It's not like they're as bad as AIG. The fault goes more with the employers who won't run factories unless it's the most profitable thing they can do. As the examples in Argentina have shown, worker-run factories can get up and running again because they're much more efficient, all while having higher wages.

Well, okay, we can get mad at BoA...but I don't advocate the recent spate of scapegoatism...as if the bankers were only more responsible, then capitalism would be smooth sailing.

I don't think any national bank is "better" than another, but I agree with your analysis. Blaming banks instead of corporations is something the far right does in order to appeal to left-wingers.

[Guerrilla22]

Anyone who has ever done any real organizing knows that the first thing you try to do with a fledgling organization or movement is get a win.

In this case, they aren't trying to start any kind of movement or organization, they simply are sitting in untill they get paid their severence pay, which was point in saying that we shouldn't be celebrating this calling it a "win" when workers are willing to be bought off by the owners in exchange for going away.


The key is to now move it forwardlearn the lessons of what worked and why, and start replicating the effect. Because at a certain point in time, a quantitavie change in the number of workers struggles, particularly if they are producing wins, becomes a qualitative change, where the working class as a qwhole begins to sense its own power.

I think we need to recognize what is actually happening here. These people aren't seeking any sort of "qualatative change" nor are they doing anything revolutionary, they simply are asking the owners to cut them a check, in exchange for them going away. This is the same type of deal that workers have been getting for sometime under the leadership of bureaucratic unions. The workers are given a small cut of the profits in exchange for not making any demands that would actually empower themselves. This isn't going to lead to a movement of any kind, it simply will lead to more workers settling for what the owners are willing to give to them, rather than liberation.

[DancingLarry]

In this case, they aren't trying to start any kind of movement or organization, they simply are sitting in untill they get paid their severence pay, which was point in saying that we shouldn't be celebrating this calling it a "win" when workers are willing to be bought off by the owners in exchange for going away.



I think we need to reckognize what is actually happening here. These people aren't seeking any sort of "qualatative change" nor are they doing anything revolutionary, they simply are asking the owners to cut them a check, in exchange for them going away. This is the same type of deal that workers have been getting for sometime under the leadership of bureaucratic unions. The workers are given a small cut of the profits in exchange for not making any demands that would actually empower themselves. This isn't going to lead to a movement of any kind, it simply will lead to more workers settling for what the owners are willing to give to them, rather than liberation.


But bad mouthing the workers that are actually standing up for themselves, that's the way to launch a true revolutionary movement, yes?

[chegitz guevara]

I think we need to reckognize what is actually happening here.

The Long March was a victory, even though it was a retreat. In this economy, in this historical situation where labor has been afraid to use illegal methods, where labor has been afraid to directly confront the right to control private property, this is a victory. It's not the revolution. It probably won't lead to the revolution. But maybe it's a spark.

[Guerrilla22]

But bad mouthing the workers that are actually standing up for themselves, that's the way to launch a true revolutionary movement, yes?

You completely ignored my point. Holding out untill the owner of the factory decides to make a minor concession, isn't really standing up for yourself. Lots of people have taken buyouts negociated by labor unions, but people like yourself are not celebrating them are you? Like NHIA said, our job should not to be acting as cheerleaders anytime there is a situation like this, but to encourage action that will actually result in something meaningful.

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/chic-d10.shtml


Workers occupy Chicago factory for fifth day


By Tom Eley
10 December 2008

The occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago by some 250 workers entered its fifth day on Monday. On December 2, workers were informed the plant would permanently close in three days and that they would be laid off. Workers are demanding severance and vacation pay as restitution for Republic’s violation of federal law, which stipulates that workers must be given 60 days notice prior to layoffs arising from plant closures. Republic claims that it cannot pay workers because Bank of America, one of its major lenders, had cut off its line of credit.

The struggle of the Republic workers has attracted widespread support. In the days since the occupation began, workers and students from Chicago and beyond have visited the plant, expressing their solidarity with messages of support and with donations.

As yet, no resolution has been reached. However, Bank of America (BOA) issued a statement on Monday, as negotiations continued, indicating that it was willing to make a loan of an unspecified size so that Republic could meet payroll. BOA said that it is “prepared to provide a limited amount of additional” loans and regretted “Republic’s failure to pay their employees the employee Claims to which they are legally entitled.”

However, the workers’ union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), issued a statement on its web site Tuesday reporting, “Bank of America informed us their statement from yesterday was released in error.”

Bank of America has been awarded a $25 billion taxpayer-funded bailout from the US government through TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), in addition to an undisclosed share of the some $4 trillion the Federal Reserve Board has handed out directly to major financial concerns.

Republic management had intended to close the plant since at least October. It had evidently begun to shift equipment and material to a non-union factory in Iowa, which borders Illinois to the West. Workers noticed that inventory items were not to be found in the plant, and they say that equipment was being hustled out in the dark of night. Republic says that its orders had fallen sharply in the past month. However, workers have expressed skepticism that the company was bankrupt. If it can demonstrate that its line of credit was suddenly cut off, Republic may not be technically liable for severance pay.

Republic is owned by Richard Gillman. Previously an investor in the company, Gillman bought Republic outright in 2006. Gillman has boasted that under his leadership Republic reduced its expenses by 47 percent and increased productivity by 30 percent, but claimed that the company has been punished by the collapse in the housing market.

A team of World Socialist Web Site reporters visited the occupied factory to speak with workers and those there to lend support. The factory is in an industrial zone on the northwest edge of Chicago’s downtown, a stone’s throw from the famous Cabrini-Green housing projects and the distribution center of the Chicago Tribune, which just announced that it will file for bankruptcy protection.

At the factory’s entrance were several dozen workers, a giant inflatable rat—meant to symbolize Republic’s owners—as well as several vans belonging to news organizations.

Several workers told the WSWS that they were not allowed to talk to the media. Their union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), has limited media contact by selecting a handful of designated workers as spokesmen, and by allowing media access for only limited periods. Leah Fried, a full-time UE organizer, has positioned herself to handle most media questions, especially those from the national news media. In the late afternoon on Monday, workers were brought in from the occupation to stand behind Fried as she spoke to CNN.

Reporters were also not allowed to enter beyond an internal entryway to the production area itself, where some 30 workers sat in a semi-circle. This, reporters were told, was part of an arrangement worked out with Republic’s owners so that the occupation could continue.

Shifts of occupiers passed in and out through the foyer. The workforce is largely Hispanic, but there are also a significant number of African-American workers employed at the factory. WSWS reporters were able to speak to several Republic workers, representatives of the UE, and supporters of the occupation from Chicago. (See: "Republic Windows and Doors workers speak on their struggle").

Workers expressed anger toward both Republic and Bank of America. They are acutely aware of and angry over the stark contradiction between the bailout of Wall Street and the mounting layoffs and deepening impoverishment facing workers. The Republic workers see their struggle as historic, and they sense that they are fighting for workers far beyond their factory’s walls.

The occupation at the Republic factory represents the first independent response of the American working class to the deepening economic crisis. By occupying the Republic factory, workers have struck at the holiest of holies of official US political life—the sanctity of private property and the capitalists’ dictatorship over production.

The example of Republic stands in sharp contrast to the response of the United Auto Workers bureaucracy to the threatened bankruptcy of the Big Three auto companies. The UAW has already indicated that “everything is on the table” in its bid to help resuscitate the profit margins of the major carmakers. This will include plant closures, mass layoffs, and savage wage and benefit cuts. All this the UAW has offered prior to negotiations and without so much as hinting at a struggle on behalf of the workers it nominally represents.

With the occupation unfolding in Chicago, autoworkers and other sections of the workforce now have a different example of struggle, one that recalls the sitdown strikes that brought about the unionization of the auto industry in 1937.

As for the perspective of their union leadership at Republic, it is limited to winning severance pay and does not extend to restoring the jobs of the workers being laid off. This limitation arises not from the workers’ struggle itself—which is courageous and unprecedented in recent US history—but from the trade union approach of the UE, which is demanding only that workers receive a “fair” dismissal and which is cooperating with the Democratic Party in an attempt to prevent broader political conclusions from being drawn.

To fight the destruction of jobs and plant closures, workers must arm themselves with a new political perspective independent of the two major political parties and the trade union bureaucracy, which together defend the profit system that has produced the current economic crisis.

Implicitly, the occupation of the Republic Window and Door factory poses the struggle for socialism. Industry and finance must be taken out of the hands of the capitalists and reorganized, the world over, in order to defend jobs and living standards and meet essential social needs.

Copyright © 1998-2008 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/ints-d10.shtml


Republic Windows and Door workers speak on their struggle


By Tom Eley
10 December 2008

A team of World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with workers at Republic Windows and Doors. About 250 workers have occupied their factory since being abruptly laid off last week. (See “Workers occupy Chicago factory for fifth day”)

Raul Flores, who has worked at the company for eight years—since he graduated from high school— said that when workers returned to work on Monday, December 1, they noticed that “a whole line of production was gone, equipment and everything.” The company then laid off 39 people.

After the full closure of the plant was announced later in the week, workers immediately made the decision to occupy the plant, Flores explained. “We said, ‘Hey, if they take everything out of here, how are they going to pay us?’ We’re taking care of the machines and windows in there, because that’s our future, that’s our money.”

Flores noted that Republic said it was forced to close its doors after Bank of America cut off the company’s credit line. With regard to the bailout of Wall Street, which has reached upwards of $7 trillion, some $25 billion of which has gone to Bank of America, Flores expressed a sentiment no doubt shared by many US workers. “The federal government gave this money to Bank of America. You paid your taxes. I paid my taxes. Everybody paid their taxes. So basically we’re paying them to get us fired.”

Ricardo

When asked what workers will do once a settlement is reached, Ricardo Caceres, who has worked for Republic for 15 years, expressed both fear and resolve. “It’s going to be hard, but I’ve got a family to support. I’ve got to go look for a job.” Ricardo explained, “It’s too close to Christmas. You have your kid asking you, ‘Dad you don’t have a job?’ It’s too hard for everybody here, on the families.”

Asked what they would say to workers in other cities and countries, Ricardo said, “This is a big starting point here in Chicago.” He added, “It’s time for workers to put their heads up. It’s time for workers to open their eyes. This is not just happening here, it’s happening in all over the world. When we get out of here, we’re getting out with our heads up.”

Ricardo said that 75 percent of the workforce is from Latin America, and most of the rest are African-American. The Latinos come from a number of different countries. Raul quickly added, “That doesn’t matter now. We’re just one now. It doesn’t matter where you come from, or who you are. We’re one person now, with all the people out there too. If we win this, it’s not just for us.”

Manuel Cordova is a Republic worker with 14 years experience. He explained that he viewed the central opponent in the struggle to be the owners of Republic. Cordova, like many Republic workers, does not believe that the plant was in desperate financial straits. Rather, he said, the company seized the opportunity of the financial crisis to lay off their Chicago workforce and relocate to employ cheaper labor.

Luis Lira, a worker with 16 years at Republic as a maintenance technician, echoed these sentiments. He said that two weeks before the announced closure the company had “moved out a complete production line from the factory.”

Luis is demanding his five weeks paid vacation time, along with 60 days severance, which would amount to about $4,000. He said that supporters have been bringing food and making donations from Chicago and the rest of the US.

Reginald Pope was laid off on October 16, in anticipation of the company’s full closure. Pope said that he was there to support the workers inside.

There were a number of supporters present, as well. Among them were workers from Chicago. Ayinde Murphy, a member of United Taxi Drivers Council, said that he was there because everybody is concerned about this issue, “because you, me, we, could be next.”

Ayinde

Layoffs are a big problem in Chicago, Ayinde explained. “We are offended that the tax money of the US citizen was just given to the banks, to bail them out, to inject liquidity, so that they would give out loans, and now they won’t give it,” Murphy said. “[US Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson had the nerve to come up with a two-and-a-half page document, shorter than a student loan form, and demand $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out the very banks that now won’t give out loans.”

Murphy said that he hoped the example of the Republic workers would be followed by autoworkers in Detroit. “All of my family lives in Detroit—autoworkers,” he said. “I know that they’re agreeing to make some concessions so that the auto companies, the Big Three, can stay in business and get a loan. I don’t have such a big problem with that, so much that the banks don’t have to go through this process. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that the reason that we have this housing crisis, this mortgage crisis, economic crisis is because the banks have been mismanaged for years. It’s hypocrisy at its highest.”

Kelvin

Kelvin Harris and Floyd Bell are day laborers who were holding a banner for an organization of day laborers in Chicago. “This right here is senseless,” Floyd said. “People have been working here 10, 15 years … and you just get thrown out … They have children at home, it’s getting close to the holidays.”

Kelvin was also there because he is the victim of a layoff. Until 2003, he was employed at Unilever. “They picked up and left us out to dry,” he said. Referring to the bailout, he said, “I want to know where all this money is going. Bailout? We need to be bailed out. We need to be bailed out right now. Come on, you work 15 years and you can’t get severance pay?”

Tony Caldera, a worker and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was there to support the Republic workers because he said he too had been the victim of a sudden layoff. He said a lot of people he knows are in the same position, and expressed anger over the bailout of the Wall Street banks. “It’s the low classes who pay the consequences,” he said. “It’s a situation where people lose. They take your money both ways.”

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHEr30UnhCRY&refer=home


JPMorgan Owns 40% of Shut-Down Chicago Factory, Site of Protest


By David Mildenberg

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank, owns 40 percent of the shut-down Chicago factory whose workers are blaming Bank of America Corp. for causing the company’s demise.

JPMorgan bought a stake in Republic Windows and Doors LLC in early 2007 through its Chase Capital Partners investment unit, spokesman Tom Kelly said. Chase Capital wrote off the investment and resigned its board seat earlier this year, he said.

“We haven’t been involved since the summer,” Kelly said in an interview today. “We are disappointed to see how the Republic workers are being treated by management.”

Workers have been staging a sit-in at the factory since last week, claiming the company still owes them pay after the nationwide housing slump caused Republic to collapse. They’ve focused their ire on Bank of America for cutting off Republic’s line of credit, and their protest attracted support from President-elect Barack Obama. Bank of America relented today, announcing in a statement that it will extend loans to Republic.

JPMorgan hasn’t discussed the dispute with Bank of America officials, Kelly said. JPMorgan has the largest share of bank deposits in the Chicago area, followed by Bank of America, which acquired LaSalle Bank from ABN Amro NV last year.

Richard Gillman, the majority owner of Republic Windows, couldn’t be reached for comment about the JPMorgan investment, according to Thomas Figel, a Chicago publicist hired to represent the company.

Obama’s Support

The workers’ union has been planning a rally at noon tomorrow at the Bank of America building in downtown Chicago. Obama, whose home is 12 miles from the factory, in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, said at a Sunday press conference the workers are “absolutely right” to demand severance and vacation pay.

The factory sit-in has become the center of the debate over how more than $700 billion in federal funds are used to help the world’s largest economy weather the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America has sold preferred shares worth $15 billion to the U.S. Treasury, while Merrill Lynch & Co., the securities brokerage it is buying, has sold $10 billion. JPMorgan sold $25 billion.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Mildenberg in Charlotte at [email protected]
Last Updated: December 9, 2008 20:32 EST

[synthesis]

I think we need to recognize what is actually happening here. These people aren't seeking any sort of "qualatative change" nor are they doing anything revolutionary, they simply are asking the owners to cut them a check, in exchange for them going away. This is the same type of deal that workers have been getting for sometime under the leadership of bureaucratic unions. The workers are given a small cut of the profits in exchange for not making any demands that would actually empower themselves. This isn't going to lead to a movement of any kind, it simply will lead to more workers settling for what the owners are willing to give to them, rather than liberation.

Or perhaps it signals an increasing willingness on the part of the working class to stand up to bourgeois interests, by force if necessary.

For one thing, if you don't feel that they are class conscious enough, you should take the cause up yourself. Just because they are workers does not mean you can expect them to have been adequately exposed to radical leftism.

But you also seem to take a somewhat judgmental tone here, as if you are equating altruism, communalism and collectivism with communism.

On the other hand, at least in its original form, communism has always been about self-interest - namely, that of the proletariat.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah, I guess some are "expressing concerns" but it still seems that most liberals are still in love.


People should *not* be living their lives through politics (or business, for that matter) -- while the matters of both are always larger than oneself, and therefore of paramount importance, that fact means that the matters far overshadow one's own involvement in them.

Unless you happen to be in a high position of power under circumstances that happen to grant a fairly wide degree of latitude in decision-making it's the *politics* that will win out, not any particular person or personality.

Look at Illinois governor Blagojevich -- he became an impromptu, self-selected hero for the workers at the Republic factory by threatening to take state government business away from Bank of America.


See: "Illinois Threat to Bank of America Is Dangerous, Critics Say" (Bloomberg)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1305505&postcount=89
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agOFtufX.FXQ&refer=home


In doing so he became a martyr because he stepped outside the circumscribed role of what a bourgeois governorship is about, and got busted by the Feds in less than 24 hours. They used Big Brother methods to nail him on some run-of-the-mill bad-ass talk about the vacant Senate seat. The Feds used the guise of "anti-corruption" to take him out for supporting the Republic workers with actual clout / political capital.

The UE Local 1110's timing was perfect. It captured headlines for its militant workers in a post-election, post-coital moment far more easily than anyone probably imagined. But by sticking only to business matters -- unpaid compensation -- and *not* politicizing or spreading the militancy to other, like workplaces, it quickly got corralled. The co-optation that leftists anticipated has already happened, if in a semi-conscious manner, with the train of government intervention and media attention stumbling in and hogging both the spotlight and the storyline of the dispute.

So now we know where the parameters are in the new Obama regime. Love, in the realm of politics, will just put you in the express lane to crucifixion. The corporate, banking-based right wing continues to dominate the federal government, if only now more behind-the-scenes, with a new turkey frontman.


Chris




--


--
___

RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162

Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
community.webshots.com/user/ckaihatsu/

3D Design Communications - Let Your Design Do Your Footwork
ckaihatsu.elance.com

MySpace:
myspace.com/ckaihatsu

CouchSurfing:
tinyurl.com/yoh74u

[ckaihatsu]

www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-workers-sit-in_10dec10,0,2597497.story
chicagotribune.com

Republic Windows & Doors plant sit-in still a stalemate
Firm's talks with Bank of America, union continue

By Robert Mitchum

Tribune reporter

December 10, 2008

An offer by Bank of America to extend more credit to Republic Windows & Doors on Goose Island failed by late Tuesday to develop into an agreement to dislodge workers who have been occupying the closed plant for five days in protest of losing pay and benefits.

Representatives of the bank, the company and the workers' union met for more than seven hours Tuesday, the second straight day of talks aimed at resolving the standoff. The media frenzy surrounding the situation ebbed as attention was focused on the arrest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges. But community support remained strong, with several unions and religious leaders leading spirited demonstrations outside the building and lending support to the 200 workers and their families inside.

Restless but optimistic, Ricardo Caceres, 39, a 15-year Republic worker, said as the talks dragged on, "I'm waiting for whatever, the good news and the bad news. Everybody's prepared," he said.

Meanwhile, city officials, including Mayor Richard Daley, continued to lament the showdown. He said workers "should be paid" the vacation and severance pay they say they're owed, and that the city is looking into whether the company should refund development funds used to construct its plant.

Republic received more than $10.4 million by the end of 2007, according to a city report. Alderman and administration officials said they were reviewing agreements with Republic which specified that the company maintain certain employment levels through 2019.

"Is there a provision in the agreement that would give the city the legal ability to recover the money?" asked Ald. Joe Moore (48th), who has backed the workers. "If not, shame on the administration and us, the City Council, for not making it part of the agreement and any other agreement."

Early Tuesday, Bank of America sent a letter to Republic offering to provide limited loans so the company could pay employee claims. Though that sparked hope of a resolution, Bank of America spokeswoman Diane Wagner said agreement on the terms of those payments was still to be reached between management and union representatives.

"We'll worry about ourselves later; right now we want to do what's right for those employees," Wagner said.

She also responded to a timeline released by Republic Monday, which stated that the company had proposed plans in October for an "orderly wind down" of the factory that the bank rejected. The bank had been concerned about Republic's finances since February and had discussions with owners about closing the plant as early as July.

"Republic had plenty of time to give their employees 60 days' notice under the WARN act," Wagner said. "But instead they kept employees in the dark about the company's dire financial circumstances."

Workers and their supporters say the company may have violated that federal law by not telling them of the closing until just days before the plant was shuttered.

Wagner also clarified that Bank of America did not cut credit to Republic last week. Rather, she said, Republic maxed out its line of credit from the bank.

Outside the factory Tuesday morning, more than 100 members of religious group Interfaith Worker Justice held a prayer service, sang spirituals and gave fiery speeches in support of the workers.

"I don't believe that the American people would have $25 billion go to a bank while workers who need the support for that money are standing outside on the street with nothing in their pockets," said Rev. Nelson Johnson, a pastor from Greensboro, N.C.

Tribune reporters Hal Dardick and Dan Mihalopoulos contributed to this report.

[email protected]

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[Martin Blank]

From the current issue of Working People’s Advocate -- http://www.communistleague.us/wpa/pdf/wpa20081208.pdf

These articles, along with our eight-point platform of action to confront the economic crisis, are available as a double-sided leaflet available for download and printing. The URL is http://www.communistleague.us/lit/pdf/republic-leaflet.pdf

Workers Occupy Chicago Factory

By ELLIOTT PARRISH
United Communist Press Association

CHICAGO, Ill., Dec. 7 — As we go to press, more than 240 workers continue to occupy the Republic Windows and Doors factory on the northwest side of the city.

On Dec. 5, workers at Republic, members of the United Electrical Workers union, showed up in the morning and occupied the plant, demanding more than $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed to them by the company.

The owners of Republic say that the withdrawal of credit by Bank of America made it impossible for them to pay the workers. Bank of America, on the other hand, says that Republic’s owners have the credit needed to pay the workers.

The mostly Latino and African American members of the UE local at Republic staged a protest in front of Bank of America on Dec. 3, carrying signs that said, “Billions for BA, $0 for workers” and “You got bailed out, we got sold out.”

The workers at Republic have repeatedly made clear that their struggle is not simply about their current situation.

“We’re doing this for the other working people in the country,” said machine operator Ron Bender, who had worked for the company for 14 years. “What’s happened to us can happen to anyone — they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay.”

“This is a message to the workers of America,” said Vicente Rangel, UE steward at Republic. “If we stand together, we will prevail until justice is done, and we get what we’re due.”

It is clear from the public record that the owners of Republic had planned to skip town with the workers’ pay before the issue of Bank of America’s credit line became their excuse for closing down and laying off the workers.

Two weeks before the occupation began, the owners of Republic bought a similar company in Iowa, where the workers are not unionized, that was in financial trouble and started the Echo Windows and doors company.

From their $2.6 million condo, Republic’s owners planned a massive capital flight, expecting that the workers would not fight back.

The struggle of the workers occupying Republic Windows and Doors has rallied working people across the greater Chicago region, and has caught the attention of workers throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Even capitalism’s politicians have felt the need to step in and voice support for the Republic workers. City aldermen in Chicago have tried to negotiate a meeting between representatives of the workers and Bank of America.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had vowed that the state will not do business with Bank of America, which has its headquarters in Chicago, and President-Elect Barack Obama had voiced support for the workers’ occupation, saying, “I think they are absolutely right.”

“If [the workers] have earned their benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments.”

Statements of support, and requests for information on sending contributions and aid, can be sent to [email protected]

------------------------------

WPA EDITORIAL STATEMENT:
Occupations and Workers’ Control

The sit-in and occupation of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago by its workers has raised the specter of broader, more militant struggle by our class brothers and sisters as the economic crisis continues to deepen.

As well it should! This kind of decisive and independent action by working people in defense of their rights, dignity and livelihoods is long overdue. As a form of struggle, it not only has the potential of winning the workers a clear victory over the owners of Republic, but also over the finance capitalists of the Bank of America corporation.

We unequivocally support the actions of our brothers and sisters at Republic and add our voice to those demanding that the workers be given what is owed to them. This is, as many others have said, a “great step forward” and a “rallying point for labor.”

But such statements and gestures of support are not enough. The Republic occupation raises broader questions — questions that go beyond one struggle or one region — that go to the heart of the situation facing working people across the United States.

The occupation is a defensive action. That is, the struggle waged by the workers has as its goal the winning of something that, by all rights, they shouldn’t have to fight for. At the same time, the form of the action points to methods of struggle that can be used in future battles to win back those things we’ve lost over the years — i.e., in offensive actions.

Across the country, working people are facing situations similar to what the workers at Republic faced when they made the fateful decision to occupy the factory. Indeed, the workers themselves have said that the struggle they are waging is “a message.”

That message, as far as it goes, is being heard loud and clear — Don’t just accept what you’re handed; fight for what you deserve! — and we couldn’t agree more with it.

But, for us, this begs the question: What do working people deserve?

Do we, as workers, deserve to be robbed of our livelihoods, whether or not the bosses bother to give us our severance and vacation pay?

Do we, as workers, deserve to be pushed deeper and deeper into poverty and misery because of the mismanagement and greed of the capitalists and their “middle class” managers?

Do we, as workers, deserve being forced to “share the burden” or “sacrifice” our rights, our livelihoods and our futures — and those of our children — so that those who profit off of our work can continue their thievery?

We say enough is enough! Yes, we’ll have to defend ourselves any time that the bosses and their managers try to rob us of what we earned and fought for. But as the old saying goes: The best defense is a good offense. If we want to defend what little we as working people have today, the best way to do that is to set our sights higher — to organize ourselves to fight not merely for today, but for tomorrow and the future.

In our eight-point response to the economic crisis, we have called for the takeover, re-tooling and re-opening of all closed down production facilities, and their placement into common ownership under the direct control of workplace committees.

This, in our opinion, is what working people deserve: The right to decide how our common worklife is organized — how the economy is organized and who it will benefit. Our brothers and sisters at Republic have already opened the door to this future of what they deserve. It is now up to them to decide whether or not to walk through that door.

Regardless of their choice, their opening of that door has given all working people a peek inside. We have seen our future, and it works for working people. Will we as a class open those doors for ourselves or let the capitalists slam it on us? The choice is ours.

[chegitz guevara]

Look at Illinois governor Blagojevich -- he became an impromptu, self-selected hero for the workers at the Republic factory by threatening to take state government business away from Bank of America.

In doing so he became a martyr because he stepped outside the circumscribed role of what a bourgeois governorship is about, and got busted by the Feds in less than 24 hours. They used Big Brother methods to nail him on some run-of-the-mill bad-ass talk about the vacant Senate seat. The Feds used the guise of "anti-corruption" to take him out for supporting the Republic workers with actual clout / political capital.

Blago was going down regardless. You have the situation reversed. He wasn't "taken out" because of his support for the strikers. He supported the strikers because he knew he was going down. He was desperate to find ways to support himself and raise his likability knowing that an indictment was imminent.

[KC]

Liberal capitalism, based upon competition and free trade, has completely receded into the past. Its successor, monopolistic capitalism not only does not mitigate the anarchy of the market, but on the contrary imparts to it a particularly convulsive character. The necessity of “controlling” economy, of placing state “guidance” over industry and of “planning” is today recognized – at least in words – by almost all current bourgeois and petty bourgeois tendencies, from fascist to Social Democratic. With the fascists, it is manly a question of “planned” plundering of the people for military purposes. The Social Democrats prepare to drain the ocean of anarchy with spoonfuls of bureaucratic “planning.” Engineers and professors write articles about “technocracy.” In their cowardly experiments in “regulation,” democratic governments run head-on into the invincible sabotage of big capital.

The actual relationship existing between the exploiters and the democratic “controllers” is best characterized by the fact that the gentlemen “reformers” stop short in pious trepidation before the threshold of the trusts and their business “secrets.” Here the principle of “non-interference” with business dominates. The accounts kept between the individual capitalist and society remain the secret of the capitalist: they are not the concern of society. The motivation offered for the principle of business “secrets” is ostensibly, as in the epoch of liberal capitalism, that of free competition.” In reality, the trusts keep no secrets from one another. The business secrets of the present epoch are part of a persistent plot of monopoly capitalism against the interests of society. Projects for limiting the autocracy of “economic royalists” will continue to be pathetic farces as long as private owners of the social means of production can hide from producers and consumers the machinations of exploitation, robbery and fraud. The abolition of “business secrets” is the first step toward actual control of industry.


Workers no less than capitalists have the right to know the “secrets” of the factory, of the trust, of the whole branch of industry, of the national economy as a whole. First and foremost, banks, heavy industry and centralized transport should be placed under an observation glass.
The immediate tasks of workers’ control should be to explain the debits and credits of society, beginning with individual business undertakings; to determine the actual share of the national income appropriated by individual capitalists and by the exploiters as a whole; to expose the behind-the-scenes deals and swindles of banks and trusts; finally, to reveal to all members of society that unconscionable squandering of human labor which is the result of capitalist anarchy and the naked pursuit of profits.
No office holder of the bourgeois state is in a position to carry out this work, no matter with how great authority one would wish to endow him. All the world was witness to the impotence of President Roosevelt and Premier Blum against the plottings of the “60” or “200 Families” of their respective nations. To break the resistance of the exploiters, the mass pressure of the proletariat is necessary. Only factory committees can bring about real control of production, calling in – as consultants but not as “technocrats” – specialists sincerely devoted to the people: accountants, statisticians, engineers, scientists, etc.



The struggle against unemployment is not to be considered without the calling for a broad and bold organization of public works. But public works can have a continuous and progressive significance for society, as for the unemployed themselves, only when they are made part of a general plan worked out to cover a considerable number of years. Within the framework of this plan, the workers would demand resumption, as public utilities, of work in private businesses closed as a result of the crisis. Workers’ control in such case: would be replaced by direct workers’ management.
The working out of even the most elementary economic plan – from the point of view of the exploited, not the exploiters – is impossible without workers’ control, that is, without the penetration of the workers’ eye into all open and concealed springs of capitalist economy. Committees representing individual business enterprises should meet at conference to choose corresponding committees of trusts, whole branches of industry, economic regions and finally, of national industry as a whole. Thus, workers’ control becomes a school for planned economy. On the basis of the experience of control, the proletariat will prepare itself for direct management of nationalized industry when the hour for that eventuality strikes.


To those capitalists, mainly of the lower and middle strata, who of their own accord sometimes offer to throw open their books to the workers – usually to demonstrate the necessity of lowering wages – the workers answer that they are not interested in the bookkeeping of individual bankrupts or semi-bankrupts but in the account ledgers of all exploiters as a whole. The workers cannot and do not wish to accommodate the level of their living conditions to the exigencies of individual capitalists, themselves victims of their own regime. The task is one of reorganizing the whole system of production and distribution on a more dignified and workable basis if the abolition of business secrets be a necessary condition to workers’ control, then control is the first step along the road to the socialist guidance of economy.
-Trotsky (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#bs)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I see a lot of opportunism and "pragmatism" as a cover for reformism and pandering to "militant" labor bureaucrats, as can be expected. People are so used to nothing that they jump all over anything.

These workers have seized a factory. That in itself raises the question of who should rule, the bosses or the workers? That's a question the union tops, the Democratic hacks and the reformist "leftists" are trying to hide. It's one that we need to bring to the forefront.


For one thing, if you don't feel that they are class conscious enough, you should take the cause up yourself. Just because they are workers does not mean you can expect them to have been adequately exposed to radical leftism.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. What Guerrilla and I have been saying is exactly that communists need to be at this occupation, standing in solidarity against any attacks while pointing out the way forward (e.g. extension of the struggle to other plants, taking the factory into their possession, etc.).

No one blamed the workers for anything. It's the labor misleaders and the bourgeois politicians attempting to corral this that need to be exposed.

[LUXEMBURGUISTA]

Time to Sit Down! Demand Socialization of Finance!

As in the US and France in 1936-37 and again in France in 1968, today Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago are showing the way to fight. With community support to prevent police action, seizing the workplace not only eliminates any possibly of scabbing or moving production, but poses a threat to the capitalists’ control over the economy. The immigrant rights, anti-war and labor movements need to provide all support not only to the Republic workers but to all workers who will follow in their lead and Sit Down to seize their workplaces.

We support the Republic workers’ demands that Bank of America release the credit needed to keep their jobs and pay their wages. But we should also ask: Why do we have to demand anything of the robber barons who run Bank of America? The Federal Government has already put into the BOA and the other top financial institutions far more capital than their net worth, which is less than zero for these insolvent banks. By all rights, the Federal government already OWNS the financial giants like BOA. Private control of finance has failed spectacularly, so why should Kenneth Lewis and the other thieves on the BOA board be making any decisions at all?

When we protest at BOA offices, we should be demanding that the Government take ownership of BOA and all financial institutions—the banks, the pension funds, the insurers—and run them with ELECTED boards at the municipal, state and federal levels. We must demand the socialization of finance! David Sole, President of UAW local 2334, is absolutely right when he says that this crisis can end only if workers control economic decisions.

If the government owns the financial institutions, it can wipe off the books the mountain of debt that is strangling the economy. And if elected boards control the Government-owned financial institution, they can decide what credit needs to be given and what debts need to be written off to maintain production and to keep people in their homes.

We need DEMOCRATIC control over finance to get out of this crisis. The planned bail-out of the automakers will include an appointed control board that could well impose cuts in auto workers wages and benefits in the name of “common sacrifice”. We need to demand boards ELECTED by all those affected by financial decisions.

Of course, we can't expect the politicians to support this demand. Only a massive workers movement could win such a demand, and only in a struggle to take full control of the economy into our own hands. But the outpouring of support for the Republic sit-down shows that such a mass movement may not be far away. Now is the time for bold actions—and bold demands. Nothing less will lead the way out of a global Depression.

The first step is to discuss among ourselves what we must demand for a Workers Recovery Plan, both on the ‘net and in community forums. Let’s start this discussion now.

In solidarity,

Eric Lerner (Workers Democracy - International Luxemburgist Network)

"Sit down; just take a seat
Sit down and rest your feet.
Sit down; you've got 'em beat.
Sit Down! Sit down!"
--1936 song--"Sit Down" by Maurice Sugar

[Revy]

Time to Sit Down! Demand Socialization of Finance!

As in the US and France in 1936-37 and again in France in 1968, today Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago are showing the way to fight. With community support to prevent police action, seizing the workplace not only eliminates any possibly of scabbing or moving production, but poses a threat to the capitalists’ control over the economy. The immigrant rights, anti-war and labor movements need to provide all support not only to the Republic workers but to all workers who will follow in their lead and Sit Down to seize their workplaces.

We support the Republic workers’ demands that Bank of America release the credit needed to keep their jobs and pay their wages. But we should also ask: Why do we have to demand anything of the robber barons who run Bank of America? The Federal Government has already put into the BOA and the other top financial institutions far more capital than their net worth, which is less than zero for these insolvent banks. By all rights, the Federal government already OWNS the financial giants like BOA. Private control of finance has failed spectacularly, so why should Kenneth Lewis and the other thieves on the BOA board be making any decisions at all?

When we protest at BOA offices, we should be demanding that the Government take ownership of BOA and all financial institutions—the banks, the pension funds, the insurers—and run them with ELECTED boards at the municipal, state and federal levels. We must demand the socialization of finance! David Sole, President of UAW local 2334, is absolutely right when he says that this crisis can end only if workers control economic decisions.

If the government owns the financial institutions, it can wipe off the books the mountain of debt that is strangling the economy. And if elected boards control the Government-owned financial institution, they can decide what credit needs to be given and what debts need to be written off to maintain production and to keep people in their homes.

We need DEMOCRATIC control over finance to get out of this crisis. The planned bail-out of the automakers will include an appointed control board that could well impose cuts in auto workers wages and benefits in the name of “common sacrifice”. We need to demand boards ELECTED by all those affected by financial decisions.

Of course, we can't expect the politicians to support this demand. Only a massive workers movement could win such a demand, and only in a struggle to take full control of the economy into our own hands. But the outpouring of support for the Republic sit-down shows that such a mass movement may not be far away. Now is the time for bold actions—and bold demands. Nothing less will lead the way out of a global Depression.

The first step is to discuss among ourselves what we must demand for a Workers Recovery Plan, both on the ‘net and in community forums. Let’s start this discussion now.

In solidarity,

Eric Lerner (Workers Democracy - International Luxemburgist Network)

"Sit down; just take a seat
Sit down and rest your feet.
Sit down; you've got 'em beat.
Sit Down! Sit down!"
--1936 song--"Sit Down" by Maurice Sugar


Agreed. :star2:

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ildwrFjwHYjvJPX2edZgBnNb8EEQD9500USG0

[December 10, 2008]


[AP] Another creditor offers cash for Chicago workers


CHICAGO (AP) — Another creditor is offering money to the owner of the Chicago factory where laid-off workers are staging a sit-in in a demand for pay.

The office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez (goo-tee-AYR'-ehz) says JP Morgan Chase has pledged $400,000 to use strictly for the workers laid off last week by Republic Windows and Doors.

The window company's main creditor is Bank of America, and that bank has also offered a limited line of credit so the workers can be paid.

The company abruptly laid off 240 employees last week and about 200 of them responded to the plant's closing by occupying it.

They swear they'll stay until they get assurances that they'll receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

Bank of America has been criticized for cutting off the plant's credit after taking federal bailout money.

[ckaihatsu]

Quick play-by-play on the latest news article to point out some sly bourgeois editorializing



Another creditor offers cash for Chicago workers


Note how the headline and lead of this story use the adjective "another", when JP Morgan Chase owns 40% of Republic and could have intervened at any moment all along.



The office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez (goo-tee-AYR'-ehz) says JP Morgan Chase has pledged $400,000 to use strictly for the workers laid off last week by Republic Windows and Doors.


This congressman is the player most willing to serve as middleman and cut a deal.



They swear they'll stay until they get assurances that they'll receive severance and accrued vacation pay.


The workers are deemed as "swearing" -- while this can mean to take an oath, it's also a nice play of words that invokes the stereotype of dirty, gritty, low-class types of workers who use swear words, or curse words. These are the type of people that normal, respectable people would not want to associate with or honor the demands of.

[Guerrilla22]

Well it seems Chase bank is eager to try to throw some cash at the situation in an attempt to make it go away, hopefully the workers there will see the offer from Chase and the owners for what it is, I'm confident they will.

[ckaihatsu]

I don't mean to be alarmist, but it feels like we're reaching a breaking point- We're only passing to the secular social-democratic stage of capitalism, but that's an incredibly big deal for a country with such a long tradition of conservatism and clericalism.
To me, this sort of feels like Spain in 1936, except with a more lazy and apathetic population. Hopefully it won't come to that, but if it does, I'll see you guys in the mass graves.

What do you think?
Economic crisis + bitter ideological divide that has been brewing for a century = I don't know, but something not good.



Blago was going down regardless. You have the situation reversed. He wasn't "taken out" because of his support for the strikers. He supported the strikers because he knew he was going down. He was desperate to find ways to support himself and raise his likability knowing that an indictment was imminent.


With all due respect, chegitz guevara, I'm going to maintain that the corruption charges against Blagojevich came out of the blue, tightly following his declaration of political material support for the Republic workers' financial plight.

This *was* a political assassination, showing us the clear boundary of bourgeois politics. Now Obama is showing us where he stands in calling for Blagojevich's resignation.

Can we compare it to JFK's assassination? Perhaps. I think we're seeing the beginnings of a labor civil rights movement, wherein broad layers of the public are now openly considering "Who controls production?"


Chris




--


--
___

RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162

Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
community.webshots.com/user/ckaihatsu/

3D Design Communications - Let Your Design Do Your Footwork
ckaihatsu.elance.com

MySpace:
myspace.com/ckaihatsu

CouchSurfing:
tinyurl.com/yoh74u


-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[chegitz guevara]

ckaihatsu,

You're perfectly free to disagree with me, but you shouldn't make assertions without proof. Blago was under investigation for other crimes, and Fitzgerald is seen by most as above politics. He's a Republican who went after the Bush administration and jailed Scooter Libby.

In other news, I was just speaking to a comrade, and apparently his group has been talking with some of those workers for a while. I don't want to say too much, but it appears that these were not unpolitical workers making a spontaneous stand, but included some already under the influence of Trotskyism.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu,

You're perfectly free to disagree with me, but you shouldn't make assertions without proof. Blago was under investigation for other crimes, and Fitzgerald is seen by most as above politics. He's a Republican who went after the Bush administration and jailed Scooter Libby.

In other news, I was just speaking to a comrade, and apparently his group has been talking with some of those workers for a while. I don't want to say too much, but it appears that these were not unpolitical workers making a spontaneous stand, but included some already under the influence of Trotskyism.


Very good, then. Thanks.

[Guerrilla22]

Well they apparently agreed to end the sit in in exchange for 1.75 million. the agreement was negociated by union leaders, the owners and Bank of America.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yep...

CHICAGO – Jubilant workers, cheering and chanting "Yes We Can," celebrated outside a Chicago factory after approving a $1.75 million agreement to end their six-day sit-in, a dispute that became a symbol of the plight of labor nationwide.

Republic Windows & Doors, union leaders and Bank of America reached the deal Wednesday night. It was not immediately clear when workers would leave the North Side factory.

About 200 of 240 laid-off workers began their sit-in last week after Republic gave them just three days' notice the plant was closing. They vowed to stay until they received assurances they would get severance and accrued vacation pay.

Each former Republic employee will get eight weeks' salary, all accrued vacation pay and two months' paid health care, said U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who helped broker the deal. He said it works out to about $7,000 apiece.

Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, said $1.75 million will go into an escrow account for the workers, $1.35 million of which came from Bank of America in the form of a loan to Republic.

"Although we are a lender with no obligation to pay Republic's employees or make additional loans to Republic, we agreed to extend an additional loan to be used exclusively to pay its employees," David Rudis, the bank's Illinois president, said in a statement.

New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. pledged $400,000 to use strictly for the protesting employees, Gutierrez said.

Officials with the United Electrical Workers union, which represents the workers, did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press late Wednesday. They had estimated the total cost of vacation and severance owed employees to be $1.5 million.

Around 100 supporters of the workers gathered Wednesday in downtown Chicago where negotiators were meeting, some beating drums and others chanting: "They got bailed out. We got sold out."

"This money is not, under any circumstance, to be used for corporate bonuses, luxury cars or any other perk for the owners of the plant," Gutierrez said in a statement.

Lawmakers earlier had criticized Bank of America for cutting off funds to the plant after it exhausted its credit line even though the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank itself received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package.

The workers had argued that Republic violated federal law because employees were not given 60 days' notice that they were losing their jobs.

Republic officials did not return messages on Wednesday from The Associated Press. Messages left seeking further details from JPMorgan Chase were also not returned.

Rudis said Republic is "unable to operate profitably." Over the past two years, the factory lost $10 million while borrowing the maximum amount possible under its agreement with Bank of America, the company said.

[Eros]

There's something very wrong about bourgeois politicians and the corporate media praising workers for occupying a factory. I mean how many times do we hear headlines like "employees call premature strike while employers seek a solution" etc. :confused:

Anywhoooo - fairplay to the Republic workers and hopefully this is just the beginning. :thumbup1:

[ckaihatsu]

There's something very wrong about bourgeois politicians and the corporate media praising workers for occupying a factory.


I don't think they had much chance to do otherwise. The pendulum's momentum was / is swinging leftward, as Bush has been repudiated and Obama was brought in due to a large antiwar consensus.

My take is that the liberal establishment is at a standstill since reformism is / has been dead, the economy is dead, and the neoconservative line is dead. All the Red Bull in the world isn't going to jumpstart the liberal brain or its agenda -- there's absolutely nothing left for them to say. All power to the soviets!!!

[ckaihatsu]

Wait -- I got more...!

Has everyone been fucking noticing that since about 2005, when the turning point came and public opinion shifted decidedly against Bush and the war on Iraq that mainstream political news has now become all about the Democratic Party Bureaucracy? There have been *zero* new material political developments, so everything is now about baseball cards -- what the lineup is, who's moving where, who has a chance for MVP, *whatever* -- it's all intramural and bureaucratic....

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There's something very wrong about bourgeois politicians and the corporate media praising workers for occupying a factory.Of course. They wanted to co-opt it and reign it in. They wanted to obscure the fundamental question that it raised: who should control production and who should rule.

[KurtFF8]

Of course. They wanted to co-opt it and reign it in. They wanted to obscure the fundamental question that it raised: who should control production and who should rule.

Indeed, but as Marx noted long ago: Capitalism "shows its true colors" in times of crisis.

Class relations have again become obvious for Americans, seeing the bailouts, and this particular case is the example of the failure of the bourgeois rhetoric: "The bailouts are necessary because the capital will 'trickle down' and make everything stable" and then a clear case of workers being refused a piece of the "bailout pie".

The working class of America is already seeing very clearly the fundamental differences between capital and labor, and this case proves that.

[bcbm]

The working class of America is already seeing very clearly the fundamental differences between capital and labor, and this case proves that.

I wouldn't say "very clearly," but I think the mindset of our class is shifting in a positive way and so we need to be ready to continue pushing things forward and not just stand on the sidelines for this sort of thing. Revolutionaries of all sorts should've been out on the front lines.

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/occu-d12.shtml


Workers occupy auto parts plant in northern Germany


By Lucas Adler
12 December 2008

On December 5, about 100 employees of the bankrupt auto parts supplier HWU occupied their factory in the small town of Hohenlockstedt, north of Hamburg. The workers are determined to defend their jobs and prevent the planned closure of the plant at the end of the year.

Occupied factory

The workers’ union, IG Metall, is attempting to end the factory occupation following complaints from union bureaucrats at a major auto manufacturer that the action was threatening to disrupt production at that other firm.

HWU produces parts for catalytic converters, steering wheels and door locks. In June 2008, HWU was sold by its parent company, the Vollmann Group, to Horst Strodtkötter, a former employee at the factory. The workforce only learned of their new owner June 30, at a factory meeting that the new managing director did not attend.

Then six weeks ago, on October 29, Strodtkötter informed the workforce that HWU was bankrupt and unable to pay their wages in October. Strodtkötter declared that a 30 percent drop in orders resulting from the current crisis in the automotive industry had driven the company into bankruptcy.

The workers reacted at that time with a spontaneous 24-hour occupation of the premises. Their main concern was to prevent the removal of any parts or machinery that would make further production at the factory impossible. Following the declaration of a bankruptcy administrator that the company had sufficient orders, and that the outstanding wages could be paid out of insolvency funds (Insolvenzgeld--money paid by the government to workers at bankrupt firms, out of a levy on the owners), the employees returned to work.

Since then the workforce has been kept completely in the dark about any further developments. There was no further information on the future of the factory from either the managing director or the bankruptcy trustee. When it was announced last week that at the end of the year the insolvency funds would be exhausted, workers reoccupied the plant on Friday.

On Tuesday morning the factory council finally informed the workforce about the plan to close the plant. The majority of workers are to be made redundant by December 31. A skeleton staff of between 25 to 30 workers will be retained until the end of March to wind down the factory. The only hope for any retention of jobs, according to IG Metall, was via the creation of some sort of transfer company (a firm specializing in matching laid-off workers with new jobs).

The workers at the factory, however, place absolutely no confidence in such a transfer company. They are all convinced that the chances of finding alternative work in the present economic climate are almost zero. Many workers have been employed at the factory for over two decades and are ill-equipped to find new jobs at this stage of their lives and careers.

Hohenlockstedt is a small town of approximately 6,200 inhabitants in rural Schleswig-Holstein. At its peak, the factory was a thriving enterprise with up to 700 employees. Older inhabitants of the town recall when the factory operated three-shifts some 50 years ago. But such times are long past.

One worker with 37 years in the plant told a WSWS reporter how he had begun his apprenticeship there as a toolmaker and in recent years had worked predominantly in the production of spare parts. The situation for many workers is very bitter, he explained:

“Entire lives are at stake. There are many workers who began their working lives here, built a house and have small children. And then suddenly one day we were informed that everything is gone. After working here for over 35 years, I’m told that as of January 1, I can only inspect my workplace from the other side of the factory gate.”

An HWU employee who has worked as a toolmaker at the factory for 20 years stressed that the jobs situation in the region was very bad: “In the extreme case, you would have to move away from here to find new work. But under conditions where everybody has the same idea it will be difficult to find work.”

A somewhat younger worker, who started at the factory as an apprentice in 1988, pointed to the anger of the HWU employees—in particular because they had been informed about the factory’s plight at such a late stage. Workers are angry that all the skills and knowledge built up over decades of employment are now considered worthless and summarily being dismissed.

SteffenAlfred

The WSWS also spoke with the chairman of the works council, Steffen Schmidt, and his deputy, Alfred Butt. When asked why IG Metall had done nothing to organise a more extensive campaign to defend the workers’ jobs, they responded by referring to disputes between the “works council princes” (union officials) active in the big car plants, who are intent on defending their own factories at the expense of all others and therefore make impossible any sort of broader solidarity between different plants and their workforces.

The perspective of IG Metall

The announcement of the closure of the facility was preceded by a series of measures aimed at reorganising the factory and which involved considerable sacrifices on the part of the workforce. The union enforced these measures by arguing that they were the only alternative to job cuts and HWU’s closing down. The result now is the complete closure of the plant. The perspective of ‘saving jobs’ by accepting wage cuts and other concessions failed catastrophically.

In 2002, IG Metall signed a contract with HWU involving a year-long reduction of the working week from 35 to 30 hours for its 225 employees with a 14 percent cut in wages. Just two years after the expiry of this contract, management announced the first bankruptcy of the factory in October 2005. The bankruptcy procedure at that time called for the shedding of 80 jobs.

IG Metall officials reacted by reaching a new contract, which abolished existing Christmas benefits and accepted other concessions. This contract ran until September 2007, when it was replaced by another involving further attacks on wages and working conditions, including the abolition of holiday pay. In return, workers were given a guarantee that their jobs would be safe until the end of 2009. This assurance has now been consigned to the waste bin following the latest declaration of bankruptcy.

The various concessions made by the trade union were incapable of saving a single job. Instead the workers were left unprepared for the planned closure of the factory. The union and the works council now regard the closure of the factory as inevitable. Their only concern is how best to negotiate the option of a possible transfer company.

IG Metall is trying to call off the occupation to ensure that the auto companies supplied by HWU receive the needed parts. The bureaucracy’s main concern is the smooth working of the German auto industry, not the fate of the HWU or any other workers.

HWU workers should establish contact with workers at these companies, independently of IG Metall, and organise a common struggle to defend jobs and production. The only future for auto workers lies in a fight for socialist policies and the nationalization of the industry under workers’ control.

In order to step up pressure on workers to return to work, managing director Strodtkötter posted a letter on the company bulletin board Tuesday afternoon threatening the immediate sacking of workers who refused to return to work. He also announced that striking workers would be forced to pay large sums to compensate for lost production.

The occupation of the HWU factory should be supported by all workers. It raises important political questions, which are relevant for workers at other companies. The most important of these questions is: who controls the productive forces and in whose interest should they be organised?

About the WSWS | Contact Us | Privacy Statement | Top of page

Copyright © 1998-2008 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/pers-d12.shtml


Lessons of the Chicago factory occupation


12 December 2008

Late on Wednesday, some 250 workers from Republic Windows and Doors ended a five-day occupation of their Chicago, Illinois factory after winning an agreement meeting their major demands.

The action taken by the Republic workers was an immense step forward, the first independent action of a section of the working class in the US in response to the unfolding economic crisis. The workers acted with courage and determination, insisting that they would not leave the factory until they received the benefits to which they were legally entitled.

The struggle of these workers quickly became a symbol across the country—and indeed around the world—of deepening anger and resistance to mass layoffs and a government policy that has handed out trillions of dollars to banks and financial institutions while ordinary workers continue to lose their jobs by the hundreds of thousands. Their action evoked broad support from all across the country.

The workers marched out of the factory Wednesday night declaring victory in their struggle. Each worker will receive about $6,000—including eight week’s severance pay, accrued vacation time and two months health care coverage.

While from the standpoint of the workers’ immediate demands it was a victory, it was a bittersweet one. The workers at Republic will still lose their jobs under conditions where no decent jobs are to be found. In two months they will have no health care. The American and world economy is entering the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, and the workers at Republic will join millions across the country who will face this crisis with no job security and no safety net.

The limited character of the struggle—the fact that it did not openly oppose the shutdown of the factory itself—is the responsibility of the United Electrical Workers (UE) leadership, not the workers themselves. The union bureaucracy never contested the plant closure, and from the very beginning it sought to channel the workers’ resistance behind the Democratic Party.

To meet the costs of the settlement, Bank of America, Republic’s major lender, agreed to contribute $1.35 million, while JP Morgan Chase, which owns 40 percent of the company, contributed an additional $400,000.

Bank of America and JP Morgan, two of the largest banks in the US, both received $25 billion from the $700 billion bank bailout passed in October. For Bank of America, this is about 20,000 times the amount the bank has agreed to set aside for the Republic workers—a sum that is merely a fraction of the annual compensation of the top executives.

The banks have used the cash from the bailout, pushed as a necessary measure to “save jobs,” to fill the holes in their balance sheets and carry out acquisitions, not to increase lending. Indeed, they have announced thousands of layoffs of their own employees since receiving the government handouts of taxpayer money. As the Republic workers put it: “They got bailed out. We got sold out.”

The occupation at Republic surprised and frightened the American corporate and political elite, which is well aware of rising popular anger over the naked class character of their multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street. In occupying their factory, moreover, the workers were making an implicit challenge to the basis of capitalist rule—the private ownership of the means of production. The ruling class has become accustomed to forcing through its demands without serious challenge. The very fact that workers have to occupy a factory in order to win benefits to which they are legally entitled is an indication of the state of class relations in the United States.

The initiative of a few hundred workers at a relatively small factory in Chicago threatened to spark something much larger. The quick settlement—coming after the workers received the verbal support of several Democratic Party politicians, including President-elect Barack Obama—reflected an attempt to get ahead of any broader struggle, to contain it before it got out of hand.

The resolve of the workers at Republic stands in stark contrast to the bankruptcy of the United Auto Workers union, which has agreed to a new round of massive concessions at the Big Three auto companies without even the pretense of resistance.

In their action, the Republic workers have demonstrated that the absence of more open forms of working class resistance is not due to a lack of determination among the workers. For nearly three decades the unions have ruthlessly suppressed any independent struggle of the working class. When such struggles have broken out, the union leadership has systematically isolated and betrayed them.

The struggle at Republic is an initial sign of an upsurge in the class struggle around the world, a struggle that arises inexorably from the contradictions and crisis of the capitalist system itself. It has tapped into militant traditions of the American working class that go back decades, including the great sit-down strikes of the 1930s.

The basic question facing millions—in the US and around the world—is that of political perspective. The demands of workers in response to the economic crisis cannot be limited to a fight for severance pay that leaves workers headed for the unemployment lines. They must directly challenge and oppose plant closures, layoffs, wage cuts and all attempts to place the burden of the crisis on the backs of the working class, and must extend their fight to encompass a global struggle for jobs and decent living conditions for all.

Such a struggle raises immediately the question of who controls the productive forces and upon what principles they are organized. The challenge that the Republic occupation raised implicitly—the challenge to capitalist private property—must be taken up consciously on the basis of a new political perspective.

Republic workers were laid off, in the end, because the exploitation of their labor was no longer profitable, it no longer served the interests of the tiny layer of the population that controls the vast majority of the world’s wealth. Even as millions of people face conditions of ever greater hardship, the forces of production needed to provide for the needs of society are being cut back or shut down. The basic productive forces and the giant financial institutions can no longer remain in the hands of private individuals, controlled for private profit.

They must be nationalized and transformed into public entities, under the democratic control of the working people. This requires a break with both big business parties and the establishment of the political independence of the working class to fight for a workers’ government.

The Republic workers’ struggle, if only in an initial and limited way, has demonstrated the social power of the working class and vindicated the conception that the objective crisis will propel the working class into struggle and create the conditions for the development of socialist consciousness. The critical question is the building of the Socialist Equality Party as the new leadership of the working class.

Joe Kishore

About the WSWS | Contact Us | Privacy Statement | Top of page

Copyright © 1998-2008 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[KurtFF8]

I wouldn't say "very clearly," but I think the mindset of our class is shifting in a positive way and so we need to be ready to continue pushing things forward and not just stand on the sidelines for this sort of thing. Revolutionaries of all sorts should've been out on the front lines.

Fair enough, and I certainly don't think that leftist organization will just naturally happen, it's definitely going to take an effort.

[Jay Rothermel]

FIST to Republic Windows workers: ‘Take destiny into your hands’

Published Dec 10, 2008 4:05 PM

Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) youth group applauds the workers at Republic Windows and Doors for taking the bold action to occupy the plant, instead of walking off the job feeling dejected when management decided to close the factory and lay them off without the required-by-law 60-day notification or 60 days’ pay. We also applaud the Electrical Workers for backing up the workers.

We support the call made by the Bail Out the People Movement, including the Dec. 8-13 days of action for protests in front of your local Bank of America office or building. The BOPM call also states, "Support the demands of the Republic Windows and Doors workers: management must meet with the workers; workers must receive 60 days’ full pay; and no repression against the workers, no attempts to remove, arrest or charge them."

The workers’ decisive action may become the tinderbox of a broad fightback against the misery and despair foisted upon workers and the oppressed, culled together by the objective nature of a system based on exploitation so that a small group of people can reap greater and greater profit.

But, what’s more, it illuminates perfectly what should become a mantra for our struggle during these times, "Bail out the workers, not the banks!"

It is Bank of America, after having received $25 billion in federal monies—money taken from the workers and the oppressed via taxes—that is refusing to release the loan money to Republic that should be used to pay the workers.

Republic Windows and Doors thought it could close up the factory, after having sold the land, and move to a place further south to get cheaper labor; they also must have thought that the workers would walk away hanging their heads. This would be understandable, as workers are being battered by the economic crisis. Both the owners of companies and the U.S. government are heaping the brunt of hardship on the backs of all workers and the oppressed.

The workers at Republic had a different idea and upped the ante, taking their immediate future in their own hands. What they are really asking for is very little—75 days’ pay guaranteed by law. What they deserve is to run the factory, including access to all the things needed to produce products.

FIST stands in solidarity and calls on all people, students, youth and other workers and oppressed people to stand up and support the workers at Republic Windows and Doors. Their action may be decisive and may inspire workers at GM, Chrysler and Ford to occupy the factories; students facing higher tuition to occupy their campuses; and people being kicked out of their homes to occupy their homes with allies and neighbors.

Instead of bailing out the banks, the billions of bailout money for banks and automakers and the money being spent to wage imperialist wars should go to those who create all the wealth— for jobs, healthcare, housing and education.

These are demands that we should fight for and win by any means necessary!

Be like the workers at Republic Windows and Doors:
Seize the time!
All power to the people!
Fight Imperialism,
Stand Together

Dec. 7, 2008


Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/fist_1218/

[ne3o]

The really disgusting part about it is that BoA, just got BILLIONS in funds from
their goverment, and just goes to show who and what they really care about.

[ckaihatsu]

By David Bacon
New America Media, 12/11/08

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=a3d3cc49a93f6bfac1b3f 22114371524

When the day finally comes that Raul Flores loses his job, he will face a bitter search for another one. "I've got a family to support, so I've got to do whatever it takes," he says. "It's going to be hard. The economic situation is not good, but I can't just wait for something to happen to me."

That puts Flores in the same boat as millions of other U.S. workers. Last month alone 533,000 workers lost their jobs, the highest figure in 34 years. A week ago, the heads of the big three auto companies were in Washington DC, pleading for loans to keep their companies afloat. As a price, lawmakers and pundits told them they had to become "leaner and meaner," and in response, General Motors announced it would close nine plants and put tens of thousands of workers in the street. Ford and Chrysler described a similar job-elimination strategy.

What makes Flores special? He didn't just accept the elimination of his job. Instead, he sat in at the Chicago plant where he worked for six days, together with 240 other union members at Republic Windows and Doors.

Republic workers were not demanding the reopening of their closed factory. They've been fighting for severance and benefits to help them survive the unemployment they know awaits them. Yet their occupation can't help but raise deeper questions about the right of workers to their jobs. Can a return to the militant tactics of direct action, that produced the greatest gains in union membership, wages and job security in U.S. history, overturn "the inescapable logic of the marketplace"? Can employers, and the banks that hold their credit lines, be forced to keep plants open?

Unlike the auto giants, Republic was not threatening bankruptcy. It makes a "green product," Energy-Star compliant doors and windows that should be one of the bedrock industries for a new, more environmentally sustainable economy. But Bank of America, as it was receiving $25 billion in Federal bailout funds, pulled the company's credit line. Perhaps that alone led President-elect Obama to support the workers. The bank-enforced closure undermines his program for using environmentally sustainable jobs to replace those eliminated in the spiraling recession. He called Republic workers "absolutely right. What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."

Federal law requires companies to give employees 60 days notice of a plant closure, or pay them 60 days severance pay, to give them breathing room to find other jobs. Republic workers got three days, and no money. "They knew they'd be out on the street penniless," says Leah Fried, organizer for Local 1110 of the United Electrical Workers. "When the negotiating committee came back to the factory to report that the company didn't even show up to talk with them, the workers were so enraged they voted unanimously not to leave until they got their severance and vacation pay."

While the workers' acted to gain their legally-mandated rights, the plant occupation resurrects a tactic with a radical history. In 1934, auto workers occupied the huge Fisher Body plants in Flint, Michigan, and when the battle was over, the United Auto Workers was born. Sitdown strikes spread across the country like wildfire. Occupying production lines in plant after plant, workers won unions, better wages, and real changes in their lives.

Seventy years later, the workers who have inherited that legacy of unionization and security are on the brink of losing everything. Just since 2006 the United Auto Workers has lost 119,000 members. The threat of plant closure has been used to cut the wages of new hires in half, to $14.50, the same wage paid on the window lines at Republic, where the union is only four years old.

Flores certainly hopes that those whose livelihoods are in peril will rediscover the tactic. "This is the start of something," he urges. "Don't let it die. Learn something from it." And the sitdown was successful. After six days sitting-in, and a rally of 1000 people in front of the bank, JP Morgan, another beneficiary of Federal assistance that owns 40% of Republic, put up $400,000, and Bank of America another $1.35 million. That was enough to pay the legally-mandated severance, the workers' accrued vacation, and two months of health care. Flores and his coworkers then voted to end the occupation.

Fran Tobin, midwest organizer for Jobs with Justice, a coalition of labor and community groups with chapters around the country, shares Flores' optimism. "I think this is not the last time we're going to see American workers occupying American plants, as part of a move to save jobs and turn things around," he says. Organizers for Jobs with Justice are fanning out with a program they call a "Peoples' Bailout." "We need to ask, 'What kind of an economy and recovery do we want?'" Tobin emphasizes. He lists funds for a jobs program, rather than huge loans to banks, a moratorium on home foreclosures, investment in infrastructure repair, and helping local and state governments (and public worker) survive the crisis without massive budget cuts.

Flores, Tobin and Fried all agree that none of those demands can be won without unions and workers willing to fight for them. That makes the Republic plant occupation more than just a local confrontation. "This might not be the right tactic in every situation, but people know we need to be fighting back," Fried says.

Will the unions in auto plants and other workplaces hit by layoffs take up the challenge of the Republic workers? To Flores, they have to do something more than just watch the elimination of their jobs. "We've got to fight for our rights," he emphasizes. "It's not fair that they just kick us out on the street with nothing. Somebody has to respond."

[Guerrilla22]

There's something wrong when the workers are kept out of negociations regarding their own future.

[ckaihatsu]

The Organizer <[email protected]> Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 1:21 PM
To: List Suppressed <Recipient>
THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 824-1072
email: The [email protected]>
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
-----


The Demands for Change Expressed on Nov. 4 Must NOW Be Heeded Now!
[Please Endorse this 8-Point "People's Bailout" Plan and Help Us Promote it Widely!]

Nov. 4 was an historic election, not because electing the nation's first Black president signifies the end of racist oppression in this country, but because millions of Blacks, Latinos, youth, and working people of all backgrounds seized on this election to say: Enough is enough, racism and oppression must end now. In the context of the deepening economic crisis, the election also was a cry from working people of all backgrounds: We cannot accept the destruction of our jobs, our homes, our public services and our communities -- this crisis is not of our making and we should not be made to pay for it.

At this historic crossroads facing our country, we, the undersigned, believe it is more urgent than ever to forge the broadest unity in action of the labor movement, Black and Latino organizations, antiwar and other social protest movements to secure the emergency measures needed to address the pressing needs of all working people and oppressed nationalities.
Here are eight fundamental demands that we believe should be included in an Emergency Plan to Plan to Bail out Working People -- NOT Wall Street.

1) Put a halt to the Paulson bailout plan. Not one more penny should be earmarked to bail out Wall Street. It's time to bail out working people.

2) Enact a moratorium on all home foreclosures, utility shut-offs, evictions and rent hikes.

3) Enact a universal, single-payer healthcare plan.

4) Enact the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) so that every worker can have union representation.

5) Stop the layoffs in auto and other industries across the country. Nationalize the Big 3 automakers.

6) Stop the ICE raids and deportations.

7) End all funding for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring our troops home now. Redirect all war funding to meet human needs.

8) Enact a massive national reconstruction public works program to rebuild the nation's schools, hospitals and crumbling infrastructure and to put millions of people back to work, with a living wage. Provide all necessary funding for a genuine Reconstruction program in the Gulf Coast.
ENDORSEMENT / CAMPAIGN COUPON INITIATED BY THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER

[ ] I endorse this statement

[ ] I would like to promote this effort. Please contact me asap!

NAME

UNION/ORG (for id. only)

CITY

STATE
EMAIL
(fill out and return it to The Organizer Newspaper at <[email protected]> or to P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140. For more information, or to get involved, call 415-641-8616.)

[ckaihatsu]

[anticapdiscuss] Re: Workers Republic -- upcoming video/discussion

The Republic Windows plant occupation and victory has raised some issues (and a video clip ) below with my comments here, fyi.

The Republic Windows workers took "matters into their own hands"yes, but not outside of or against their union, the UE. To suggest otherwise is, from everything I saw and heard, simply wrong. My understanding- based on going to both major rallies, listening to a few workers inside the plant, and talking with one worker there for a while, watching the UE refuse to support settlement until the workers voted on it- is this: the workers discussed the situation and voted unanimously to occupy the plant as part of a union- called meeting, with union organizers there and with the active, actually vital, support of their union at all levels. Same with the unanimous decision to accept the settlement: it was at a union-called meeting as well. To portray this otherwise is simply inaccurate, misleading and unintentionally harmful

While some of us on the left might want this to have been a 'workers republic' (as the video title calls it), it was not a worker-run plant, let alone a republic,however cute the play on words, this being Republic Windows. Nor a workers action outside of union leadership/control (as comrade [...] puts it here). Imposing our ideas on reality harms everyone's ability to understand what did happen and learn from it.

In fact, this was a defensive fight to win pay/benefits owed them under federal (and state) law. There was concern for the switch of work to the newly-bought plant in Iowa, hence occupation to use the equipment and inventory as 'collateral' or hold it hostage to a settlement for those wages/benefits. The workers chose to bypass the legal system, violate property laws, and put themselves at risk of arrest and serious charges to win what the law _said_ was theirs. Thus, it was both legally-based and illegally fought. They had little/nothing to lose; they were out of work with 3 days notice; they got no severance pay despite the WARN federal law mandating 60 days notice of closings, their medical insurance was cancelled the last day of work; and their vacation pay was killed. What did they expect? To be taken to jail.

Several workers told me that they were simply astonished at the solidarity they experienced, with hundreds at rallies, people and groups of union workers coming to the plant with coffee, food, blankets, money, comradeship, solidarity greetings, and cheer. The Republic workers' bold, organized, and self-disciplined action thrilled millions who are sick with fear and filled with anger at billions for bankers, nothing for workers. Their fight was our fight; in a very real sense, their actions were the flame of worker resistance so many have been waiting for. After decades of defeats where the unions' leaders have sabotaged the struggles, from PATCO on, we stood our grounds and won with union support, not sabotage.

At the same time, [...] asks where were the leaders of the Chicago Federation of Labor, with their huge membership numbers? Good question.In fact, the Fed and its unions did nothing visible to build the rally either at the plant on Saturday or at the Bank of America on Wednesday. No Fed officials spoke, no union banners, no visible delegations except a few AFSCME staffers while hundreds of AFSCME nearby members likely were not even told of the rally. I did see some from Teamsters 705. The SEIU, invisible despite they too having many members downtown, reportedly struck a deal on Tuesday with the Bank of America /Republic owners for just the vacation pay. The workers/UE did not even vote on this reported deal; from that failure, some longtime worker-activists deduce that SEIU pulled out its support of the Bank of America rally. Perhaps this accounts for the failure of the Chicago Fed officers to also show up. Can't say. Asks them.

Politically, the Republic/UE slogan "Bank of America, you got bailed out, we got sold out!" was astute and on every UE picket sign. It tapped into the huge resentment and anger at the (bi-partisan) giveaway to the thieves. It connceted this fight with larger class forces and feeling. In fact, the union was intimately involved, from beginning to end, top to bottom. If one has criticisms of UE's leadership, be specific and not project our wishes onto that reality. Making Procrustean beds is no substitute for concrete analysis.

And wishful thinking is no substitute for building on the actual developments with all their potential and limitations. This was not a 'Workers' Republic' despite the video title: they did not attempt to run production. Nor was it a workers' fight without or against their union as suggested below. Personally, I wished this had developed into a fight to stop the union-busting move to switch production to a non-union plant, but it did not. That was not the workers' objective as voted and acted on.

Did the union leadership encourage this limitation? I don't know. Was there worker sentiment to fight to keep the plant open? Some. Was the decision to limit the occupation to what was the workers' legal rights correct, given the actual forces on both sides? Could a fight for keeping the plant here open have won? I don't know that either. Only people or groups with contacts in the plant and able to estimate what kind of action-solidarity on many fronts was available for such a major confrontation. Another life-lesson on the need for an organization devoted to worker-socialism, revolution, etc.

In any case, this fight was a great development and a powerful sign of what workers can do with action. Our power comes as workers,not litigants or consumers. The potential of workers' struggle and solidarity came through. This fight was our fight, and we WON!

in solidarity,

[...]

And for those conflicted about undocumented/illegal immigrants, I have a question: these were mostly Mexican workers, so did you worry about their immigration status, or did you support their fight as just and as our fight? Maybe the fact that they were Mexican and Black meant that they were more willing to take such action. Maybe N. American (white) workers and others have lots to learn from those pressed down, such as our brothers and sisters from Republic Windows.


In a message dated 12/12/2008 8:57:06 A.M. Central Standard Time, [...] writes:




This is a great victory. I am excited to see the video. But i would like to ask those reading this to consider one detail . You mention that the workers took "matters into their own hands." It is very good they did. because if they had not the union leaders would not have moved to occupy. As far as I know there are up to $1 million workers affiliated to the Chicago Federation od Labour. Where were the leaders of this huge force. It was left up to the workers themselves, the left and religious groups who supported them to take action. And of course the odd capitalist politician who saw the way the wind was blowing and decided to take wing. Thanks for making the video.

[...]


Check us out:
www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
www.laborsmilitantvoice.com
www.myspace.com/lmvprofile


-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Duncan <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 6:33 am
Subject: [chi-labor-against-the-war] Workers Republic -- excerpts from upcoming Labor Beat show -- YouTube link


Workers' Republic - excerpts

Click here to see on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiFzP48UHYw

When the workers at Republic Windows and Doors were notified their factory would close in three days, they took matters into their own hands. The union work force seized control of the factory for 6 days to demand the severance they are owed by law. On the sixth day of their occupation, they won all their demands, and showed the world's working class a classic example of people power (something not seen in the USA for decades).
This short video from Labor Beat represents a fraction of our coverage of this historic event. The full 30-minute episode, "Workers' Republic," will be uploaded soon.

Copyright 2008 Labor Beat. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is affiliated with IBEW 1220. Views expressed are those of the producer, not necessarily of IBEW. For info: [email protected],www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video or YouTube and search "Labor Beat".

Scenes during the occupation
Photo: Andrew Freund / Labor Beat

[fredbergen]

http://www.internationalist.org/theint3_ns3.gif
December 2008


Unionized Immigrant Workers Win $1.7 Million in Back Pay


Chicago Plant Occupation Electrifies Labor

http://www.internationalist.org/chicagouesitin10812.jpg

Against Mass Layoffs: Workers, Seize the Plants – Take to the Streets!


On Friday morning, December 5, the Bureau of Labor Statistic reported that U.S. employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November. Taken together with the BLS’ revised figures for jobs eliminated in September and October, that’s 1.2 million workers thrown onto the street in three months as the credit crisis turns into a full-fledged economic collapse. Curiously, the stock market rose, on the grounds that things were so bad that the government would have to act.

At almost the same hour as the jobs report was released in Washington, the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago was scheduled to close its doors. The owners had abruptly announced three days earlier that they were shutting down, and didn’t even show up for negotiations with the union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), the day before. But the furious 240 workers refused to take it lying down. They fought back, and showed the way to others.

At 10:30 a.m., the largely immigrant and black workers took over Republic and occupied the plant, vowing to hold fast until they won the vacation pay and 60 days severance pay owed them under the Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. And they did. On the sixth day of the occupation, J.P. Morgan and the Bank of America, two of the biggest banks in the United States, forked over $1.75 million to pay for Republic’s legal obligations.


http://www.internationalist.org/chicagouesitin20812.jpg(Photo: Chris Geovanis/Chicago Indymedia)


The news of the occupation Friday spread like wildfire through the labor movement. TV reporters and crews broadcast the news of the spectacular action around the Chicago area. By the evening, trade unionists and other supporters were showing up at the plant, located in the Goose Island industrial area of North Chicago, bringing coffee, donuts and solidarity. The next day, news reports reverberated among labor and left activists nationally, and internationally.

From plant floors to corporate boardrooms and broadcast studios, people had their eyes glued on the small plant in Chicago to see what happened. Everyone was well aware that this could be a harbinger of things to come as mass layoffs spread. If 200-plus workers could sit down and win, what would that mean for auto, where the United Auto Workers (UAW) is facing the shutdown of dozens of plants and tens of thousands of firings? Could the Republic sit-in spark a wave of labor struggle using militant tactics seldom seen since the ’30s?

The sense of expectation was heightened by the shift in political climate with the election of Democrat Barack Obama to the White House on a platform of “change” from the despised regime of George Bush. “I have a lot of hope that next year, with a new president, he’ll make good decisions and invest money in industry so I can get another job as soon as possible,” one of the Republic workers, Apolinar Cabrena, told the media (AFP, 6 December). In reality, unemployment is going to get worse, a lot worse, under Obama as the capitalist crisis deepens.

Another, even more fundamental factor, was the sense among the workers that they had nothing to lose. With millions looking for work, the chances of finding another job soon were slim. Unemployment insurance isn’t enough to live on and make payments on home mortgages, car payments, credit card bills and medical expenses. Plus it runs out after a period of months. Republic workers remarked that they could soon lose their homes as well as their jobs.

In fact, with Obama still in Chicago before moving into the White House next month, the pressure on the Democratic president-elect to side with the workers was enormous. The giant Bank of America, which received $25 billion in federal bailout funds supposedly intended to encourage lending to businesses, had refused to roll over the credit line to the employer, who claimed he couldn’t paid the back wages. The BoA was seen as the Grinch Who Stole Xmas.

Meanwhile, people showed up at the plant with donations of food for the workers, a truckload of toys for their children. Celebrities like Jesse Jackson showed up to compare the workers to civil rights hero Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. Illinois’ wheeler-dealer governor Rod Blagojevich made the scene to announce that he was ordering state agencies to stop business with Bank of America. (The next morning he was arrested in his home by federal agents on corruption charges.)

Beyond the expressions of sympathy and grandstanding by the politicos, there were demonstrations of solidarity. The UE held a rally of over 1,000 in downtown Chicago on December 10, while Bank of America offices were picketed nationwide in support of the Republic workers. Internationally, messages of solidarity came from labor federations from Japan to Venezuela and France, declaring, “Your fight is our fight as millions of workers around the world are suffering from the economic crisis that affects more and more people every day.”

Negotiations dragged on as the bankers claimed it wasn’t up to them to pay the workers and company management claimed they didn’t have the cash. But a little digging by reporters revealed that the owners of Republic Windows and Doors last month set up another company, Echo Windows and Doors, which in turn bought a plant in Iowa. Their intent was clearly to save on wages by shifting production to the non-union facility. They were already shipping machinery out in the dead of night and on weekends.

Republic CEO Rich Gillman turns out to be a first-class villain who makes Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street look like a do-gooder. Not only were they taking away the livelihoods of 240 workers and refusing to pay what they legally owed them, they didn’t declare bankruptcy at Republic until after the plant closure, so workers’ claims would come after other creditors. And while pleading poverty, Gillman demanded that any new bank loan also cover the lease of his BMW 350xi and Mercedes S500 luxury cars and pay eight weeks of his $225,000 salary!



They Dared to Struggle, and Won



The sit-in at Republic Windows and Doors didn’t just happen spontaneously. A few weeks earlier, as they kept a late-night lookout to see where machinery from the plant was being sent, Mark Meinster, a UE organizer, raised the possibility with Armando Robles, president of Local 1110 at the plant. By Friday, when company officials announced that they were not only shuttering the plant but had already cut off employees’ health insurance and were refusing to pay the last week’s work, the angry workers voted unanimously to occupy the factory.


http://www.internationalist.org/chicagouesitin30812.jpgThe United Electrical Workers became the representative of Republic workers in 2004 after they voted to decertify the Central States Joint Board, an outfit long run by Laborers Union leader John Serpico, who was notorious for sweetheart deals with the bosses, sweetheart loans from banks and close ties to the Chicago and Illinois Democratic political machine. The UE is relatively more democratic and feisty than the norm for American “business unionism,” and last spring organized a picket at the plant and presented a petition to management listing demands.

The occupation itself had modest goals, to force the company and the banks who financed it to pay money that was legally owed the workers. UE officials also raised the possibility of finding another company to restart the plant and there was talk of running it under an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), as Avis Rent-a-Car or United Airlines were for a time. The “worker ownership” of such arrangements is a fiction, making the workers responsible for their own exploitation while management continues to run the company, fire employees, etc.

Various leftists talked of “workers control,” citing the example of occupied plants like the Bruckman textile and Zanon ceramics plants in Argentina. Workers in those plants fought tenaciously to save their jobs in the face of unscrupulous bosses much like those at Republic Windows and Doors. But far from being workers control – which is dual power at the factory level, in which workers contest for power with the capitalists – these are essentially cooperatives, which with limited resources compete from a weak competitive position on the capitalist market.

The real power the workers at Republic had was they were safeguarding the facilities, finished products and equipment in the plant – or holding them “hostage,” as the bosses saw it – that were worth far more than the $1.75 million owed them. After all, these were their tools and the products of their labor. If the banks had refused to settle, and no way was found to save their jobs, the workers could have demanded that the proceeds from any sale of assets be paid to them.

The intrepid band of Republic workers were facing off not just against a real stinker of a boss but against major corporations. BoA is the closest thing to a nationwide bank in the United States, and it turns out (which had not been previously publicized), that 40 percent of the windows plant was owned by the JPMorgan Chase investment bank, whose Midwest chairman is William Daley, brother of Chicago’s Democratic mayor Richard M. Daley. The building belongs to the Wrigley chewing gum corporation, bought out last fall by the Mars candy conglomerate.

In the end, Bank of America caved under the mountain of bad publicity, shelling out $1.35 million while JPMorgan threw in another $400,000. The workers discussed the proposal and voted unanimously to accept it, pouring out the factory doors to proclaim to the waiting media, “We did it!” While some leftists proclaimed it as a “resounding victory” (Socialist Worker, 11 December), the fact is that Republic workers are still out of a job, with no prospect of getting work. But it was definitely, as a UE official said, “a victory for workers everywhere.”



Fight Layoffs with Militant Labor Action



What does the Chicago workers courageous plant occupation mean for working people around the country? For one thing, Republic was an inspiring example of solidarity of Latino and black workers, putting the lie to the bosses’ propaganda (repeated by some fake leftists) that immigrant workers are too cowed to be militant. Here the mainly immigrant workers set an example of audacious action for all labor in the U.S. Also on December 11, Latino immigrant and black workers at the giant Smithfield hog processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina voted for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) after a bitter 14-year fight, overcoming management efforts to set different ethnic groups against each other (see box).

These are signs of a shifting political climate, but despite the fervent hopes for “change” by many who voted for Barack Obama, the example of Republic workers will not simply multiply. As the capitalist crisis deepens, hard class battles are coming, in which the Democratic president will back the bosses. This time, as a small group of workers won national sympathy, Obama could make a grand gesture and declare that the workers were “absolutely right” in demanding what was legally owed to them. But while he is the first black president in the history of the United States, a country founded on slavery and marked by racism throughout its history, Obama represents not the mass of black poor and working people but the interests of capital.

If other workers react to mass layoffs and plant closures by following the example of the Republic workers in Chicago, and they should, they will be met next time by a massive wall of repression and slander. Auto workers, for whom losing their job means they will likely never set foot in an auto plant again, will be portrayed as greedy and “privileged.” The pink slips from the companies will be backed up by an act of Congress ordering “restructuring” of the industry.

Moreover, the labor fakers who sit atop the United Auto Workers (UAW) are actively helping the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) and the incoming Democratic administration by agreeing in advance to rip up past gains and drive wages and benefits down by at least $10 an hour. The only question is when, in 2009 or 2010. Already new hires receive only $14.50 an hour and sharply limited benefits as a result of past givebacks.

While the UE is better than most American unions in various respects, it still plays by the bosses’ rules, working within the legal framework set by the ruling class to hamstring labor action. In order to win battles on a large scale, workers must rip off that straitjacket and act according to their own rules. The stranglehold of the present misleaders of labor must be broken and replaced by a leadership with the program and determination do what it takes to defeat the bosses.


http://www.internationalist.org/flintsitdownstrikeguard37.jpgAuto strikers guard window entrance to GM's Fisher Body Plant #3 during 1937 sit-down strike. (Photo: Library of Congress)


The Republic plant occupation harked back to the 1937 General Motors sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan. The tactic had been used a year earlier by rubber workers in Akron, Ohio, and then by steel workers. But it was the occupation of Fisher Body and Chevrolet plants in Flint that laid the basis for the UAW and unionizing the mass production industries in the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions. Flint was a pitched battle against police and National Guard, and without the leadership of communists and socialists it never would have won.

Other militant tactics soon appeared: “flying pickets” (truckloads of strikers to stop scabs or spread the action); “hot-cargoing” (union workers refusing to handle scab goods); “solidarity strikes” (shutting down production in support of another union). Many of these were pioneered by supporters of the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky in the Minneapolis Teamsters, who in 1934 led a truckers strike that shut down the city. Other citywide general strikes took place the same year in Toledo, Ohio (auto parts) and San Francisco (longshore). All were led by “reds.”

But in the “red purge” that drove militant leaders out of the unions after World War II, Congress passed the infamous Taft-Hartley “slave labor” law that outlawed these militant labor tactics. Today while the sellout AFL-CIO and “Change to Win” bureaucrats pin their hopes on passing the Employee Free Choice Act to unionize workers through a simple “card check,” we insist that strong unions can only be built by workers action independent of the government, on the picket lines and in the plants.

Jesse Jackson talks of a “non-violent wake up call to America” and the need for a “bigger movement to resist economic violence.” If unions not only take over factories to protest layoffs and wage cuts, but also prepare to defend them against the forces of state repression as they did for 44 days at Flint in 1937 – including with a Women’s Emergency Brigade led by the Trotskyist Genora Johnson on the front lines against the cops and company goons – this talk of “non-violence” will be turned against the workers. The struggle for workers defense guards, as for plant occupations against layoffs and wage cuts, will require class-struggle leadership.

Such struggles can’t be waged on a plant-by-plant basis. Plants facing shutdown are in a weak position to start with, since the bosses are already losing money on them. It is also necessary to unite the factories with the masses of unemployed in the black ghettos and Latino barrios in a common class struggle led by the most powerful sectors of the workers movement. In a real battle, strike action shutting down the Chicago commodities markets, the transit authority, steel and other industries would be key. Teachers unions with their ties to the poor and working-class neighborhoods, and others can play important auxiliary roles. And again, this will not be accomplished by business-as-usual “business unionism.”
The Internationalist Group emphasizes that any serious struggle against the scourge of unemployment in this developing depression will have to oust the pro-capitalist bureaucrats and break from the Democrats. The ruling class is worried that after decades of socking it to labor, destroying unions and ripping up workers’ gains, it could be facing some serious unrest. “We’re going to have riots,” warned a Southern Senator in opposing the auto bailout. But for the unrest and resistance to roll back the bosses’ union-busting offensive and achieve victory, we need to forge a revolutionary workers party.

Ultimately, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote 160 years ago in the Communist Manifesto, “every class struggle is a political struggle.” And the fight to abolish unemployment cannot be achieved under capitalism. Many liberals and reformists today talk of a “new New Deal,” as if the mounting job losses, wage cuts, evictions, homelessness and poverty could be resolved by a repeat of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s public works, social insurance and corporate regulation programs. But FDR’s programs didn’t end the Depression, World War II did.

While it was touched off by a housing bubble, credit crisis and stock market panic, underlying the present economic collapse is a classic crisis of overproduction reflecting the capitalists’ falling rate of profit. Trotskyists put forward a transitional program of demands –including for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay, to divide up the available work among all takers; for workers commissions to open the books of the giant corporations; for massive public works under union control – as part of an overall program leading to socialist revolution, in the U.S. and worldwide.

The closure of Republic Windows and Doors is a vivid illustration of the irrationality of capitalism. People need quality windows and doors, particularly in the dead of a Midwest winter. Yet windows and doors will no longer be produced at Republic, because it isn’t “profitable” for Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the cockroach capitalist Gillman. Meanwhile, millions are being evicted from their homes even though the mortgage defaults have shaken the pillars of international finance capital. Now more than ever – workers to power, to lay the basis for an internationally planned, collectivized economy producing for human needs rather than profit. ■



To contact the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, send e-mail to: [email protected] Return to THE INTERNATIONALIST GROUP Home Page (http://www.internationalist.org/index.html)