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

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

What kind of solidarity is already set up that folks can plug into? Is there a permanent outside picket? Are people bringing food? Is it easy/possible to get food/blankets, whatever else inside? What could people bring to the site?

The call here is to organize a external picket by community and labor supporters outside the plant throughout the weekend. For more information contact Mark from UE at 773 405 3022 Spread the word online - listserves, Facebook, blogs, websites, bulletin boards -- every place you can think of.

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.

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 leahfried (at) gmail.com. For more information, call UE at 312-829-8300.

if there are enough pickets, perhaps it might be worth forming lines in front of unionized businesses that are related to the factory - giving other workers the option of joining/supporting the strike by honoring the picket line. just a thought.

For folks outside of Chicago, Jobs With Justice set up this e-mail action to Bank of America: www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica

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.

"They've discovered that the previous owners were pretty much unnecessary for running the business;"

Yes, when you remove existing debt obligations, and are able to walk into a business with a supply chain and sales channels already developed by someone else, I'm sure running a business is easy.

Someone had to build the business from scratch and fund its development, and take the risk of failure, and it was not the employees.

wow, you're stupid

What you are really saying is that an employee take-over is not as attractive as a corporate take-over.

It doesn't really matter, does it. Where one failed the other succeeds - that is capitalism.

What you are really saying is that an employee take-over is not as attractive as a corporate take-over.

It doesn't really matter, does it. Where one failed the other succeeds - that is capitalism.

"Someone had to build the business from scratch and fund its development, and take the risk of failure, and it was not the employees."

Yeah, and someone also had to run the business into the ground. Who might that be - the Joes and Janes working on the line or the suits in their cozy offices? I can hazard a guess...

Reality check! This isn't a coconut factory! What's left of US manufacturing requires highly skilled and experienced engineers (whom can get jobs elsewhere) and deep pockets to design, test, market and coordinate. This isn't the kind of thing that a rat-pack of disgruntled floor workers could either bankroll or manage.

This is what happened in the Glorious Motherland on a grand scale and it worked so well there. Rise up! Rise up! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

The workers ran things so well over there. Just ask anyone living near Chernobyl.

Come on, everyone knows most of the real work is done at the bottom level, 'it' trickles downhill as the saying goes.
True, management has most or all of the responsibilities, and for that they get huge bonuses, even when the business is going belly up? I'm tired of it, myself!

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