Remember the Republic Windows and Doors company? Or more specifically, do you remember its workers?
They were first in the news in December 2008, when you may have been suffering outrage fatigue, so it's understandable if you can't quite summon the details. Here's The Rachel Maddow Show, December 8, 2008 with the story:
For those not able to watch that video, in short, Bank of America, after taking billions of dollars from taxpayers to save their business, decided to pay back some taxpayers (almost 300 of them) by closing their window and door factory with just a few days notice. Rather than take "go" for an answer, the workers, with the support of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, stayed in protest.
The next few months saw a series of victories for the workers. Here's Rachel updating the story on March 2, 2009:
Back in December, you may recall us reporting on the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago. The company abruptly closed down and its 250 employees staged a sit-in to protest losing their jobs and to fight for benefits they were due in that shutdown. Our first follow-up to that story was that the employees succeeded in getting those health and severance benefits that they were owed.
Our second follow-up was that their factory might get bought and reopened by a green technology firm in California called Serious Materials. The latest follow-up, sale's gone through, the factory is likely to reopen, and those workers who fought back are expected to be hired back by this new firm, union jobs in their old factory.
The buyout by Serious Materials brings the story to February 2012. Serious announced that it would liquidate the factory as part of a consolidation plan. Again the workers wouldn't take "go" for an answer, and by then sit-ins had a new name, Occupy. Rather than hold out for yet another buyer, the workers decided to buy the plant themselves.
After the sit-down, Serious agreed to delay liquidation and to give workers a fair chance to bid on the plant’s equipment. About two dozen longtime employees then formed a cooperative—New Era Windows—kicking in $1,000 each (with the help of family and friends). For months, several workers have been attending weekly co-op management classes.
Serious rejected their bid, and in July 2012 they were back to protesting. By that time they'd also hooked up with Brendan Martin (see the bottom of this page) and his organization, The Working World.
I'm not sure what happened next, but I do find this small bit of further detail:
Serious Energy was on track to liquidate the plant's assets instead of following through on its pledge to help the workers save their jobs, until a combination of online and offline activism—including a march on Serious Energy investors Mesirow Financial in Chicago—brought the company back to the negotiating table.
At some point it seems that Strike Debt also played a role -- fast-forward to 2:50 p.m. January 30, 2013:
It's a new era. First machine fired up at worker owned factory #NewEraWindowsAndDoors #Chicago twitter.com/StrikeDebt/sta…
— StrikeDebt (@StrikeDebt) January 30, 2013





This is good news!
Great job by the workers! Business savvy, patience, and hard work paid off.
Plus a willingness to kick the boss's ass.
Oh no! Creeping Socialism! How long before Republicans pop up and say that without the magic pixie dust of Serious Capitalists, this is a disaster!
ArabChicago Spring?We don't have Spring. We do have two seasons: winter and road construction.
Thank you! This is GOOD NEWS. I did wonder what ever happened to those courageous workers, and now I'm glad to know they are going to be okay....Score 10 for worker solidarity!
DA! Worker Rights кричать "Ура!"
United, we stand!
Employees owning the businesses where they work? Isn't that UnAmerican?
Seriously, I love worker-owned businesses. Wish there was a WinCo close enough to shop at.
More power to them!
Hey ship some of them doors and windows over to the Jersey Shore, we're gonna need them real soon.
Construction is beginning to pick up so they might stand a better chance than if they had been successful earlier.
A bunch of union hacks get to go back to work and pay their dues to the AFL-CIO, then the AFL-CIO will send that cash to the DNC...
Just think if the GOP had a labor union in it's back pocket stuffing the coffers with cash.
The MSLSD gang would be all over them like a cheap suit
I know! It's incredible! Instead, the GOP has the Chamber of Commerce, and the NRA, and the Koch Brothers, and Foster Friess, and Karl Rove's groups, and FreedomWorks, and Americans for Job Security, and ...
Sorry, started to repeat myself after the NRA.
The GOP already has a metric ton of people to hose them down with cash, and their goal with the collective bargaining (read: union) right stripping bills is to gut the other side's ability to do so in groups.
But you know, please go back to Newsmax and the Examiner and Fox and the other low-information high-fear machines and have yourself a nice day.
A metric ton???
So were do you get your news??? the ralph maddow show?
Down here we have Publix supermarkets and they're a terrific employee-owned company.
O my yes, ho-lee-cow
it is absolutely horrible that this “bunch of union hacks get to go back to work and pay their dues to the AFL-CIO, then the AFL-CIO will send that cash to the DNC…”
B U T
You left out
Pay their RENT / MORAGE
By FOOD / CLOTHING
Pay their utility bills for WARMTH / LIGHT / COOKING
Take their kids out for some family fun
ETC
You know the reasons for a job.
Oh I see now, only union workers have bills to pay!!!
Let me guess, you have never been in a union have you..
Notice how unions are losing members.
And the liberals are all up-set over it. Means the DNC will have less money in the bank.
I really want to thank you, Ho, for your great work today, demonstrating how ignorant ignorance has to be, to be dumb enough to be one of you inbred southern droolers.
Oh look a keyboard hard azz..
Guys, ho is a low information, low education, low intellect type. It has difficulty with rational thinking and with communicating above a very low level. Let's not sink to that level when responding to it, but instead try to bring it up to our normal level.
In the first place, it won't know that it has been made fun of, and in the second place, when it finally figures out that people are laughing at it, it won't know how to respond.
LOL.... Look I'm laughing...
Workers owning the means of production? Oh, nos! Wasn't Occupy supposed to be a huge failure? Waah! I wan't my country back! Waah!
Sometimes revolution happens at a barricade. Sometimes it happens like this. Little by little, things change, until one day the world is entirely different and no one can remember it having been any other way.
As always, screw the unions! They have no reason to exist in the current United States of America....they are a welfare state, pure and simple. Get a life, union workers, and realize that nobody needs you anymore.
Unions = middle class.
Mike in redneckistan , anti union wal mart corporations are the welfare state , not union workers , or american workers for that matter