Laid-off workers occupy Chicago factory, demand severance

[ColdBlooded]

Laid-off workers occupy Chicago factory, demand severance
Associated Press — 12/07/2008 11:40 am

CHICAGO -- Workers who got three days' notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won't go home without assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay.

About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.

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.

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

"We're doing something we haven't done since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," she said, referring to a tactic most famously used in 1936-37 by General Motors factory workers in Flint, Michigan, to help unionize the U.S. auto industry.

Fried said the company can't pay its 300 employees because its creditor, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, won't let them. Crain's Chicago Business reported that Republic Windows' 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."

Bank of America received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package. The company said in a statement Saturday that it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees.

"Across cultures, religions, union and nonunion, we all say this bailout was a shame," said Richard Berg, president of Teamsters Local 743. "If this bailout should go to anything, it should go to the workers of this country."

Outside the plant, protesters wore stickers and carried signs that said, "You got bailed out, we got sold out."

The Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a civil rights group, announced in a news release Saturday that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson planned to visit the workers Sunday morning to offer his support.

Larry Spivack, regional director for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, said the peaceful action will add to Chicago's rich history in the labor movement, which includes the 1886 Haymarket affair, when Chicago laborers and anarchists gathering in a square on the city's west side drew national attention after an unidentified person threw a bomb at police.

"The history of workers is built on issues like this here today," Spivack 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.

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

"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.

 

[Nuttkase]

I am really glad to see the bailout is helping those who need it.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

that's dope, keep us posted cb

 

[Nuttkase]

Republic Windows owner linked to Iowa plant purchase

A company managed by the wife of Republic Windows and Doors owner 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 purchased a $2.6 million Oak Street condo together in 2007, 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 slowing orders 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.

 

[ColdBlooded]

They need to move from just occupying to re-starting operations.

 

[ColdBlooded]

Workers win: Bank to give credit to Chicago plant

CHICAGO – Bank of America says it will extend credit to a Chicago window and door maker whose workers have occupied the factory for five days.

The bank said Tuesday that it's willing to give the Republic Windows and Doors factory "a limited amount of additional loans." That's so it can resolve claims of employees who have staged a sit-in since Friday.

The factory closed Friday after Bank of America canceled its financing.

Workers were given three days' notice. But they refused to leave and vowed to stay there until receiving assurances they would receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

The bank has been criticized for cutting off the plant's credit after taking federal bailout money.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Good article I read today. "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.”'

Workers occupy Chicago factory for fifth day

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.

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

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

^^^^ All this "save people's jobs talk" is a great fairy tale but people are missing the bigger more important concept that saving peoples jobs equates to the direct perpetuation of our inflated society and our rapid path towards destruction.

Our economy has been inflated by credit. In order for us to get back to a reasonable/maintainable level our economy will be forced to shrink. When the economy shrinks, jobs will be lost. In this case, as construction slows, construction supply companies will be forced to scale back or close. If companies were smart and didn’t use the current “operate on credit/leverage all cash” model they could have probably survived a hell of a lot longer.

We have two options, continue trying to save our way of life that will would no doubt inevitably lead to our destruction in the near future or realize that our way of life was unsustainable and that in order to achieve a more reasonable/maintainable level many jobs will be eliminated and not replaced as our inflated economy shrinks back to size.

They are going to be causalities now or later; and a lot more if we wait until later.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

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.

What are acceptable "living standards" and "essential social needs"???

I am sure everyone would agree that it is extremely different for Seattleites than it is for Yanomamos.

Which definition is accurate? Do we need to fly down to Brazil and give Yanomamos TVs, clothes, supermarkets because their essential social needs are not being met? They have survived for thousands of years without anyone letting them know that their essential needs are not being met.

This whole concept is too relative, and our definitions are too heavily influenced by what we see around us.