Chicago Sitdown Strike Produces Win for Workers, Anger against Banks

When managers informed the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago that the plant would close in three days’ time, the announcement was no surprise.

Suspicion that something was wrong had been floating around the workplace for weeks before the December 2 announcement. “We’ve had a lot of our machines taken out of the plant at night,” said Melvin Maclin, vice president of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 1110 and a seven-year employee. “And along with the machines go people’s jobs.”

Concerned that Republic’s owners would remove or sell off the remaining machinery before they handed over pay for severance and vacation time already accrued, the workers brought in a local congressman, Representative Luis Gutierrez.

But management failed to show at a meeting with Gutierrez, leading workers to take a dramatic stand that confounded expectations about the U.S. labor movement, long in retreat.

They refused to leave the plant at closing time December 5, voting unanimously to occupy their factory, the first such action in the United States in years.

Lalo Munoz, an employee of Republic for 34 years, said workers were determined to fight. “They decided just to kick (us) into the streets, with no benefits or nothing, not even what we have already earned,” he said.

The occupation lasted six days, until a unanimous December 10 vote among the 240 workers accepted a severance package worth about $7,000 per worker. The deal also includes two months of health care, a crucial gain for workers who discovered that their coverage had been unilaterally yanked.
WHO GETS BAILED OUT?

Republic management laid the blame on its primary financier, Bank of America, claiming the bank’s refusal to extend further credit to the company caused the shutdown.

Company representatives insisted that without further credit they could not pay workers the severance they were owed—although information surfaced days into the occupation that owners had found enough cash recently to purchase a non-union window factory in Iowa.

A Chicago councilman who had seen company documents said workers in Iowa would be paid one-third of what Republic workers earned. In 1996, the company received a $9.6 million subsidy from Chicago to place the factory in the city.

The Republic workers turned their attention to Bank of America. Jobs with Justice helped the union organize a press conference outside the bank’s Chicago headquarters, where speakers hammered the bank for refusing to release to Republic a tiny fraction of the $25 billion it was granted in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

The plant occupation tapped into simmering discontent nationwide about banks’ refusal to open credit lines that could help struggling firms survive . Dozens of protests sprouted across the country in front of Bank of America branches.

As harsh as Republic’s stance seemed, Chicago organizers emphasized that the company’s refusal to give the legally required 60 days’ notice of a plant closing and to pay severance was by no means unique.

A bakery and a potato chip plant, both large and unionized factories, are just two that have shuttered in Chicago in recent years without following the plant-closing law.

“This is not an exceptional practice,” said Adam Kader, director of Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues (CICWI), a worker center involved in campaigns to recover severance pay. “This is standard practice.”

Workers at Republic, however, were uniquely prepared to fight their plant closing. Before the occupation, they were already well-known in Chicago labor circles. A mostly African-American and immigrant Latino workforce, they organized into UE Local 1110 four years ago after dumping a company union that had agreed to a wage freeze and had allowed dozens of workers to be fired with no protest.

“There is a political tradition that the UE has nurtured, and when the time was right, it presented itself and they could seize the moment. The organizers were quick on the uptake to understand the issue at hand and fit it into the global context. They did it brilliantly,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
SPARKING THE FIRE

Word of the workers’ decision spread rapidly among Chicago labor and social justice activists. Within hours a prayer vigil, organized by CICWI, had been planned. Supporters appeared at the factory’s entrance bearing gifts of food, coffee, blankets, and sleeping bags. They signed posters that workers taped to the factory walls, with messages like “Thanks for showing us all how to fight back” and “You are an inspiration to us all.”

Hundreds of supporters showed up to the prayer vigil, and workers received statements of solidarity from as far away as France and Argentina, where factory occupations are a more familiar form of protest.

The occupation entered the national stage in full force after President-elect Obama voiced his support. The Republic workers make energy-efficient doors and windows, products at the core of Obama’s call for a new, more environmentally sustainable economy.

Local politicians threatened to pull city and state business with the Bank of America, and apparently offered other promises of assistance to the workers, too. UE Western Region President Carl Rosen announced he was working with state agencies to find financing to re-open Republic under new management, and UE announced the creation of a fund to restart the plant.

Given the scale of public and political support, it was only a matter of time before the workers won their demand for the severance legally mandated under plant-closing laws.

Some pumped-up supporters are wondering whether the Republic victory will be a spark that re-ignites the labor movement.

“We really feel like we had an obligation to working class people to win this fight,” said UE international representative Mark Meinster, “because of what it could mean for workers in this country.”

http://labornotes.org/node/1994

San Francisco activists demonstrate in solidarity with Republic Windows & Doors workers

By Richard Becker - Tuesday, December 9, 2008, Originally posted at Party for Liberation and Socialism.

A sit-in and protest was held in San Francisco on Dec. 9 as an act of solidarity with workers who have been sitting-in since Dec. 5 at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago . Four people were arrested after sitting in at a downtown office of the Bank of America during the protest in San Francisco.

Bank of America, which has received tens of billions in taxpayers money from the bank bailout, triggered the plant closing by cutting off credit to the company to pay workers their wages and ongoing expenses. The shutdown of the plant without notice is a violation of federal law.

The workers, members of the United Electrical Workers union, have refused to leave the factory until they are paid in full for wages, unused vacation time and other compensation due to them. They are also demanding that Bank of America extend credit so that the plant can remain open and they can keep their jobs.

The solidarity demonstration in San Francisco was organized on less than 24 hours notice. It was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and endorsed by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Justice First, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO), among others. A meeting of 70 delegates of the S.F. Labor council enthusiastically and unanimously voted to endorse the protest at their bi-weekly meeting held the night before.

As trade unionists, other workers and progressive activists picketed outside chanting "Bailout the Workers, Not the Banks," four activists entered the Powell & Market branch of the bank, declaring that they would not leave until there was justice for the Chicago workers. After a short standoff, the four were arrested for trespassing. They are: Jon Britton and Chris Banks of the ANSWER Coalition; John Reiman of the IWW; and Gloria La Riva, President of the Typographical Sector of the Northern California Media Workers Union and the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s 2008 presidential candidate.

As those who had been arrested were brought out of the bank, they and the San Francisco police who arrested them were surrounded by spirited picketers, chanting "Let Them Go!"

The protest drew the attention of hundreds of people in the downtown area, some of which joined the picket line. Among the speakers at the event were: Clarence Thomas, Executive Board member, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10; Frank Martin del Campo, member of the Executive Committee of the S.F. Labor Council; Richard Becker, ANSWER Coalition; and Gloria La Riva.

The arrested activists were cited and released later in the evening.

For more information on the Chicago plant sit-in, visit http://www.ueunion.org/ue_republic.html.

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4497

Chicago workers end window plant sit-in

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Laid-off workers at a Chicago window factory ended a five-day sit-in after banks agreed to lend the failed company $1.75 million for outstanding wages and benefits, union officials said Wednesday.

"The occupation is over," said Armando Robles, president of the United Electrical Workers local 1110, which led the sit-in.

About 200 workers launched what they called a "peaceful occupation" of the Republic Windows and Doors factory Friday after Republic gave its employees three days notice of the layoffs. According to the workers, Republic told them that Bank of America had cut off credit to the company.

Federal law requires 60 days notice or 60 days paid compensation for workers when they close plants.

Bank of America agreed Wednesday to approve $1.35 million in loans to pay those obligations. Another $400,000 came from J.P. Morgan Chase, union officials said.

Workers approved the deal at a meeting Wednesday night. Union official Carl Rosen said the average worker will receive about $6,000 under the package.

But he added: "This is about more than just money. It's about what can be achieved when workers organize and stand up for justice."

Union representative Leah Fried said this week that Republic had put the blame squarely on the bank for the layoffs.

"The company told us very clearly they are shutting down, shutting their doors because Bank of America refused to continue their credit and their financing," she said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ordered the state government to suspend doing business with Bank of America on Monday as the weekend protest spilled into the workweek.

After meeting with the workers on Monday, Blagojevich told reporters that "we are going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers."

His meeting with the workers came a day before he was arrested on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of a successor to President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/10/illinois.labor.protest/index.html

Labor Board Limits Political Strikes

An overlooked order by the Labor Board’s lead lawyer this summer dealt a serious blow to the rights of U.S. workers to protest government policies.

On May Day 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers walked off their jobs to protest restrictive immigration legislation. Some were fired, and brought complaints to the board. Ronald Meisburg, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, responded by posting a directive on “political advocacy” this July that enables bosses to immediately fire employees who participate in work stoppages of a political nature.

The directive, as yet apparently unnoticed by both unions and labor lawyers, cannot be appealed.

Traditionally, workers around the world have used two kinds of walkouts to achieve their goals, economic strikes over workplace issues and political strikes directed at government policies.

Political strikes in the U.S. are not as common as in Europe and Latin America. But they have happened, as in the 1970s strike by coal miners for black lung legislation and in this year’s walkout by West Coast dock workers against the Iraq war.

The massive immigrants rights marches in May 2006 may have been the largest political strike in U.S. history. In the aftermath, numerous workers, mainly Latino, were fired from their jobs. Among them were employees at three restaurants. La Veranda, a Philadelphia eatery, terminated five workers who told their manager they would miss work. In Fresno, California, a restaurant fired eight of 13 workers for violating its attendance rules. And an Applebee’s restaurant whose location is unclear in the directive fired several workers who left work early. None of the workers belonged to a union.

The 2006 May Day cases appear to be the first to reach the NLRB where workers lost their jobs because of a politically inspired work stoppage.

Since labor law gives all workers—not just union members—a protected right to strike over matters affecting their livelihoods, some of these workers filed unfair labor practice charges at the NLRB seeking reinstatement and back wages.

The workers asserted that they had the same rights as union strikers, in particular, the right to conduct stoppages over workplace-related matters without permission.

Meisburg’s office dismissed the workers’ charges. In his directive, Meisburg, a management lawyer appointed by President Bush, asserted for the first time that work stoppages are protected by the National Labor Relations Act only if they are “directed at an employer who has control over the subject matter of the dispute.”

Thirty years ago the Supreme Court ruled that workers can take part in political activity in their workplaces if the issues involved have a substantial impact on workers’ rights or job conditions. Meisburg said his position was consistent with a footnote in that case, although no other legal authority had drawn such a conclusion.

Jack Getman, the University of Texas law professor who 40 years ago wrote the law-review paper cited by Meisburg to make his case, thinks the general counsel overreached.

"It is within the scope of [the law] for immigrant workers to pressure employers to support their political interests," he said. "There should be no doubt of the activity being protected."

Although the Meisburg directive does not go so far as to make political strikes illegal, the effect is the same. Unless the next general counsel reverses the order, union and non-union workers who hit the bricks over government policies on immigration, health care, or fuel prices, no matter how closely related these matters are to their employment, do so at the risk of immediately and permanently losing their jobs.

[Robert Schwartz is the author of Strikes, Picketing, and Inside Campaigns: A Legal Guide for Unions.

http://labornotes.org/node/1921

Wal-Mart Canada shuts another location after workers unionize

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwire - Oct. 16, 2008) -

The closure of a unionized Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express in Gatineau, Quebec "is another attack on its workers, on the community, and one more example of its blatant disregard for Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms," says Wayne Hanley, the National President of UFCW Canada.

"Wal-Mart thinks a cheap oil change is more important than the Canadian constitution."

Wal-Mart Canada announced Thursday that it was shutting the Gatineau outlet because a union contract, which came into force in August, didn't fit with its business model. It is the second time Wal-Mart has shut a Quebec outlet after its workers decided to form a union.

In April 2005 Wal-Mart shut its store in Jonquiere, Quebec and terminated more than 200 workers just as binding arbitration for a first-contract was set to begin. Later this year the Supreme Court will hear arguments that the shutting of the Jonquiere store was a violation of those workers' rights.

In June 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that under the Charter's Freedom of Association protections, workers in Canada are guaranteed the right to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining, "but once again Wal-Mart has proven the only rules it respects are its own, " said Hanley.

"For Wal-Mart to say its employees are free to unionize, but then declare that a contract produced through mediation just doesn't work for their business model, means as far as Wal-Mart is concerned, the rights of its American shareholders are more important than the human rights of its workers in Canada."

"Now it is up to the Supreme Court to tell Wal-Mart that it is not above the law and that it must respect the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively."

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Ufcw-Canada-910734.html

French Mourn Leisure Lost as 35-Hour Workweek Ends

Michel Guyot often takes a weekday off to go to the Sugiton limestone cliffs on the Mediterranean Sea in southern France to smell the thyme and listen to the cicadas. Those cherished moments may soon be history, he says.

The engineer for a Total SA venture at a port near Marseille says it's likely to be just a matter of months before his employer applies a law passed by France's parliament this week that may reduce time off for white-collar workers, or cadres, by as many as 17 days a year.

``It's a specter, a cloud over my head,'' said Guyot, 60. ``No more escapes to Sugiton to take a step back from work. This law will bring more stress, frustration and less productivity.''

Guyot, like other white-collar workers, is bracing for a dimming of their ``joie de vivre'' as President Nicolas Sarkozy pushes to keep a promise to ``restore the value of work.'' With the late night passage of the law on July 23, Sarkozy has rung the death knell of France's 35-hour workweek, undoing labor rules put in place a decade ago by the Socialist Party.

Under that system, blue-collar workers were limited to 35 hours a week on the job. Cadres received days off to compensate for working more than 35 hours a week, giving them total annual paid leave of about seven weeks, including vacation.

French employees' hours are the second-lowest in the Group of Seven industrialized countries, behind Germany, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The French worked an average 1,561 hours in 2007, 291 fewer than in 1979. American workers put in 1,794 hours, down 31 hours.

Boosting Growth

The new law, which lets companies negotiate working hours, overtime and compensatory time directly with employees, is part of Sarkozy's effort to counter a slump in economic growth and may come into effect in early September.

Since taking office last year, Sarkozy has blamed the 35- hour workweek for weakening French competitiveness. He fired his first salvo last year, allowing blue-collar employees to work more than the cap, in exchange for 25 percent more pay for additional hours. Companies were exempt from labor taxes for these hours.

The new law dismantles the final piece of the rule, allowing cadres and their employers to swap days off for more pay. It raises the upper-limit of working days to 235 a year from 218, paying cadres 10 percent more than their standard salary for each day above 218.

The Socialist Party and minority centrist groups asked France's Constitutional Council today to rule on whether the law breaches the ``social foundations'' of the Republic, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the party's leader in the National Assembly, said in an e-mailed statement.

Paris Street Protest

Many cadres -- who make up just over 15 percent of the working population -- are infuriated with the new law.

``Sarkozy is always asking for more, more productivity, more hours,'' Bernard Van Craeynest, president of their CFE-CGC union said. ``But eventually he'll see more sick leave, less motivation, more burnouts.''

More than 300 cadres from companies including France Telecom SA and steelmaker ArcelorMittal took to the streets of Paris on July 23 with banners saying, ``There's life beyond work,'' and ``It's my private life, I care.''

``Working more for those who want to is a right,'' said Eric Pigal, 44, a manager at Accenture Ltd. in Paris and a CFE- CGC union representative. ``But paid 10 percent extra? That's not enough.''

Life Balance

The French have paid for their extra time off. Average annual wages in France grew just 3.4 percent from 1995 to 2006, slower than the 4.7 percent rise in the U.K. French economic growth has lagged behind the U.K.'s every year since 2000.

``Having more leisure time and no money to make it worth it is like lying to yourself,'' said Michel Sapranides, who owns Pelatis SA, a 40-person electrical maintenance business near Paris. Sapranides says the new law will help his business expand faster. Most of his employees have offered to work more to earn more, he said.

Not everybody is so optimistic.

``The 35-hour week brought us a balance between working hard and having time to enjoy the fruits of our labor,'' says Patrick Lecuyer, 47, who is based in Toulouse and organizes assembly lines for Airbus SAS.

Lecuyer uses his compensatory days off for adventures, such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with friends in 2003.

``By breaking the system, companies may break white-collar employees' motivation,'' he said.

French white-collar workers earned an average of 3,855 euros ($6,045) a month after taxes in 2006, four times the minimum wage and twice the average private-sector income, according to the Paris-based Insee statistics institute.

Political Risk

Cadres were among the biggest Sarkozy supporters in the May 6, 2007, presidential election, with 52 percent voting for him, according to Paris-based pollster Ipsos. His approval rating among them dropped 23 points to 30 percent, it said this month.

``The 35-hour workweek was most favorable to the cadres because they had the money to enjoy their free time,'' said Jean-Francois Doridot, head of public opinion at Ipsos. ``There is a political risk in attempting to take it away.''

Guyot agrees.

``Sarkozy's desire is to awaken France and boost growth,'' he said. ``But for me, his plans sound more like a call for austerity than modernity.''