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Here’s a story where the good guys won for a change:
240 union workers at Republic Windows in Chicago were fired with little notice on Dec 5, 2008. The company publicly announced on December 3 that Bank of America was ending its line of credit, that the company was declaring bankruptcy and shutting its doors promptly and permanently. The company stated that employee health insurance benefits would be terminated on December 31 (employee insurance had, in fact, already lapsed) and that back pay owed would not be forthcoming. The company acted in clear violation of the WARN Act, a Federal law that requires companies to give workers 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs.
200 workers, represented by United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, peacefully took over the Goose Island physical location and staged a sit-in that got widespread media coverage and support from politicians and police. The sit-in was held in order that the workers would receive accrued vacation and sick pay and other benefits rightfully theirs under their contract.
That sit-in — which was supported by then-President-elect Obama — turned out to be a very good thing, as the union workers preserved evidence of gross wrongdoing on the part of Republic’s management. (Among the stunts Republic was trying to pull: Taking the factory’s equipment — which Republic didn’t actually own — and stealing it by moving it to a non-union facility in Red Oak, Iowa, that Republic had recently acquired.) That evidence has now led to the arrest of Republic CEO Richard Gillman.
The Red Oak, Iowa non-union facility failed within two months. The old Chicago facility has had a much different fate: It was bought by Serious Materials, a green building company based in California, which cut a deal with the union to eventually hire back all the fired workers as business conditions permitted, and to allow full union representation. The slow economy is inhibiting rehiring — there’s still a glut of existing housing on the market — but both Serious and the union are confident that all the workers will be called back over time.
23 Comments
Huzzah for happy endings!
thank you and rec. PW, needed to hear a good ‘un about now
Well, lookee here: somebody actually got nabbed for stealing and violating labour laws.
Perhaps there is some hope after all!!
Great news! Thanks for this update. And cheers for Serious Materials!
Wow, the good guys win one. When’s the last time THAT happened?
Teddy, you and all Californians are in my prayers:
Finally, a politician with the courage to kill the UC system once and for all.
Serious Materials can be reached here (for cheering purposes).
Thanks.
thanks Laura, sent them a thank you note. good to see they are providing manufacturing jobs in the bay area
And the evil executive gets busted!
That’s great news! Would love to see more thieving CEOs in jail.
Obama=Bush!!11!!11!
blerp.
thanks Phoenix
to allan at 13 and in general to all. It’s nice to hear that someone’s union is helping their membership with good decision-making. I’m a member of the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) in California, which represents clerical workers. In their extra-contractual discussions with the University, they decided not to take part in the university’s “Furlough Program,” in which employees’ pay is cut, but in which they aren’t asked to work the equivalent of the pay cut. In other words, someone whose pay is cut 5% would be given the equivalent of 5% of the year off, at the employee’s discretion. The pay cuts are being applied universally to non-represented employees, and the various unions were consulted as to whether or not they wished to sign on (which in all cases would have involved an amendment to the collective bargaining agreement, but which would have been fairly easy to manage). Instead, CUE leadership decided that they wouldn’t go along with the university’s plan. This leaves the membership open to “temporary layoffs” for which they would be eligible for UI, but which would still cost members more than the Furlough Program. CUE leaders, under the circumstances, are now encouraging members to take part in a different voluntary program that would allow them to defray the pay reduction over 9 months. However, even this program would cost the membership almost twice as much as the Furlough Program. The intransigence of CUE is costing its members dearly. Where’s the solidarity in that?
Chalk one up for the good guys!
You progressives need to face the facts, Unions are the problem..just take a look at that broken system out in CA and NY…
There are really good unions and really terrible ones, and you should not judge all of them based on the reprehensible policies of the bad ones (California Prison Guard Union springs to mind, what with their lobbying for harsher sentencing laws and prison privatization)
Unions are not “the problem” in all cases. This is a little bit of an old source (2005), but you will notice some of the most productive auto plants in North America are union plants.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/feb06/news.shtml#1
“Six of the top 10 North American assembly plants are union shops, reports Roger Kerson, assistant director of public relations of United Auto Workers. Ford Motor Co.’s Atlanta assembly plant was ranked third on the list, at 16.58 assembly hours per vehicle; GM’s Oshawa (Canada) No. 2 plant was fourth, at 17.47 hours; and GM’s Lansing, Michigan, assembly plant was fifth, at 17.53. Nonetheless, Nissan’s Altima plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, a nonunion shop, is the most productive U.S. plant, with an average of 16.10 hours per vehicle.”
If one wants more updated figures I would suggest contacting Ed Wallace of Business Week On Line and The Fort Worth Star. He quoted more updated figures back at the end of 08 or early 09. His figures, less Atlanta, were about the same showing some of the most productive plants union plants.
Since Reagan our government has done all it could to reduce the power of unions or “labor,” all the while increasing the power of “capital” in the age old struggle between the two. This has resulted in no real gain in wages since 1973 when adjusted for inflation. But notice the bankers were making so much money they could speculate in all kinds of economy killing schemes.
If anything we need stronger unions today, yes even if one does not belong to one, because they force wages up for all workers. Go back in our economic boom years and match up union membership and you will find when union workers do well, all workers do well.
Do unions, like capital get out of control at times? Sure. But right now we need wages to go up so consumers will be able to spend money on major items like cars.
Thanks! That’s great news. It sounds like he could go to jail for a long time. That’s justice.
Unions are not the evil spawns of Satan that the conservatives would have us believe. This story is a great example of a union doing what they are supposed to do. However, unions are only good when they have an active membership that cares who is elected to positions of leadership and holds those leaders accountable for what they do in office. Union leaders are just another form of politician and can be subjected to the same kinds of distractions and corruption.
Unions are just a bunch of workers banding together to protect one another. In the case of Republic Windows and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, the union members were the ones in the white hats.
Nice to celebrate these victories. thanks.
Could you fools please remember that only something like 10% of workers belong to a union? Republicans have succeeded in tricking people into believing that unions are bad for you. So who profits from that misguided belief? Republican business owners who can continue to exploit you!
Those of you who like the 40 hour work-week, the 8 hour workday, paid vacations, paid healthcare, paid holidays, time-and-a-half for overtime, should thank unions, because THEY got them for you.
Those that don’t like unions are free to give up all of that to their employers, because god knows CEOs need more perks and pay and stock options as they shepherd their companies into the ground and you out of a job as they send your job overseas.