[Grav!ty]

Chicago Window Factory Reopens with Occupying Workers Back on the Job


This is probably quite old news, the "take over" by workers having being initiated December 2008, when workers were layed off. I didn't see anything about it at the time though. It's actually very interesting, just look at some of what happened and was said:

A worker said:

They gave us like an hour, more or less. They came and said, “OK, you have your papers. Now go.” That is when we said, “No, we’re not leaving. This is where we’re staying.”

Another continued:

So we decided—we just said, “Hey, we’re going to stay here until, you know, you all give us some better answers than this.”

CBS reported:

More than 200 of Republic Windows and Doors’ 300 union workers are staging a sit-in of sorts until they get what is legally owed to them. The union says company officials told employees they were closing shop because Bank of America would no longer extend Republic a line of credit. Bank of America wouldn’t confirm that, due to confidentiality concerns. Workers say the fact that Bank of America received $25 billion in the federal bailout makes this even more unacceptable.

Source article: Democracy Now!


I couldn't find the Chicago unions documentary on this that's mentioned in the article, but did find a documentary by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis on some similar situations in Argentina. Just follow the links to more parts of the movie if you're that interested.

[imnuts]

I didn't think that it was in Chicago, but the company sounded familiar and I remember there being something here before about this, but I thought it all ended after the company got enough of a line of credit to finish paying workers compensation that they were entitled too but weren't given.