The original occupation: Ex-Republic Windows and Doors workers start cooperative

Before there was Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Chicago, a group of 250 workers in Chicago decided to occupy the factory they were working in as a protest to a planned closure.

This week these same workers at the Goose Island windows factory have announced what may be the closing chapter in their occupation plans: they've started they're own cooperative in the hopes of buying the factory and equipment and becoming their own bosses.

The workers first occupied the plant for six days back in 2008 when their employer, Republic Windows and Doors, closed without giving them any notice, severance pay or accrued vacation time. The workers' actions won themselves severance and back pay.

A little more than three years later, they were in the headlines again for occupying the same factory, then owned by Serious Materials, now known as Series Energy, to keep it from shutting its doors.

Their second occupation, which lasted only 12 hours, got them a promise to keep the factory open an additional 90 days and that the company to look for a new owner.

Armando Robles, president of the United Electrical Workers Local 1110 said that the workers had been hoping they could become the new owners. Part of that plan became a reality Wednesday when the workers incorporated as a cooperative under Illinois law called New Era Windows LLC.

"The main idea is to make the cooperative be successful," Robles told The Chicago Reporter. He estimates it will cost them $2 million dollars to buy the factory's machinery.

Their first occupation in 2008 made national and international headlines, and was described as "a perfect parable of all that was wrong with the financial crisis."

Republic Windows and Doors was said to have closed because Bank of America ended the company's credit line, and the company, in turn, cut their workers off. This came only weeks after the bank received a $15 billion bailout in 2008.

"Here the banks like Bank of America get a bailout, but workers cannot be paid?" asked Leah Fried, an organizer with the union workers, told The New York Times in 2008. "The taxpayers would like to see that bailout go toward saving jobs, not saving C.E.O.'s."

Along with the occupation, the workers also filed a complaint under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires companies to give employees 60 days’ notice prior to mass layoffs.

The window factory workers aren't the first workers in Chicago that have filed charges under the WARN Act. Rolf's Patisserie, in Lincolnwood, IL. fired 134 workers whose last paycheck later bounced with little warning in January 2012.

When we first wrote about Rolf's, we speculated whether it would "be the next big fight when it comes to workers' rights?" Their case is still pending, but the happy ending for the Goose Island workers may be a ray of hope.

© Community Renewal Society 2012

Link to original article from Chicago Muckrakers