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LOCAL News :: Labor

Laid-off workers furious as bank pulls Chicago plant's credit

CHICAGO (AFP) — Laid off workers were camped out at their abruptly shuttered factory on Saturday, demanding that the bank which cut off credit to the Chicago window maker free up some financing so they could be paid their final wages and benefits.
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The sit-in began on Friday morning, just hours after the Labor Department reported that a stunning retrenchment cut 533,000 jobs from US payrolls in November, sending the nation's unemployment rate to a 15-year high.

The grim economic outlook was on the minds of the 300 workers whose were given just three days notice that Republic Windows & Doors was being forced to close.

"It's tough. It's really tough," said Apolinar Cabrena, 43, who had worked for the company for 17 years.

Cabrena's wife is pregnant and expects to deliver around Christmas. He's got a mortgage and two other children to worry about and is owed eight weeks of unused vacation pay and two months of severance.

"I know the economy is bad, not just for me but for everybody," Cabrena said after he stepped outside the factory to speak to AFP on Friday evening.

"I have a lot of hope that next year, with a new president, he'll make good decisions and invest money in industry so I can get another job as soon as possible."

Company officials told the plant's union that they were being forced to close because their main lender, Bank of America, had withdrawn their financing.

Federal law mandates that workers get paid for unused vacation time and are either given 60 days notice of a mass layoff or paid for that time.

But company officials said they could not make those payments because the bank was "basically controlling all expenditures at this point... and was not allowing it," said United Electrical union representative Leah Fried.

"There's a whole other level of shamefulness given the bailout (of financial institutions) and that Bank of America didn't extend credit as they were supposed to," Fried told AFP.

Fried said Republic Windows & Doors had been hard-hit by the downturn in the housing market but could likely have managed to keep the business afloat if their credit had not dried up.

"This is a company that's been around for 48 years. They've been through quite a few ups and downs in the housing market and they probably could have gotten through this, but Bank of America decided to cut off the financing despite the bailout they received (from the government) and now these people are out on the street."

Representatives from the company and Bank of America did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bank of America issued a statement to the local CBS news affiliate saying: "Neither Bank of America nor any other third-party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees."

After spending much of Friday chatting over pizza and coffee, the plant's 250 union members organized themselves into three shifts to keep the building occupied until a settlement is reached.

"We're doing this for the other working people in the country," said machine operator Ron Bender, who had worked for the company for 14 years.

"What's happened to us can happen to anyone - they could just close up and put you out and give you no severance pay."

Company officials told the union they would not try to eject them from the plant and said they would attend a meeting on Monday afternoon with the union, the bank and US Representative Luis Gutierrez to try to hammer out a deal.
 
 

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