Skip to main content

BIG NEWS AT PRESS CONFERENCE ON REPUBLIC OCCUPATION...

Image
By
Well we expected big news today and we got it...

1. 15 aldermen have proposed the City Council of Chicago pass a resolution that the city stop doing business with Bank of America if they do not ensure the workers get what is due them.

2. Carl Rosen, President of UE Western Division officially called for the plant to be re-opened under new management and stated that he is working with various public agencies to make this possible.

In the mean time, it has been revealed that Republic planned to move operations to Iowa under a new name. The Iowa plant would be non-union, pay around $9.00 an hour, with limited benefits. Workers would need to work three years before receiving vacation pay.

I will try to get the full text of the proposed City Council resolution posted here as soon as I can.

I will also have pictures shortly.

Comments

  1. NateDecember 8, 2008 at 12:50 PM

    Jerry,

    Thanks so much for the continued coverage. I'll have more time in about a week, maybe less. What can folk out of town do to help out? Fundraise I'm sure - it'd be easier if there was an electronic way to donate - are there things that the strikers need in addition to money that people could donate? Pressure on BoA elsewhere, maybe?

    This is only partly related, but do you know of any good stuff on BoA's behavior in the lead up and during the initial bubble-burst of the credit crunch? And regarding foreclosures? There was a protest here against BoA for foreclosing homes recently, I couldn't attend though. Some googling pulled up just a few things -

    http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/may-9-protest-bank-of-america-in-chapel-hill/

    http://www.ace-ej.org/stop_post_foreclosure_no_fault_eviction_protest

    http://www.workers.org/2008/us/detroit_0501/

    Might be worth trying to create some conversations across the different people effected by this stuff. Or, those conversations may already be happening and I haven't seen it.

    take care,
    Nate

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 8, 2008 at 2:07 PM

    Word is also the Cook County Board President John Stroger also attended this press conference, pledged his support for the Republic Windows workers, offered fee county health care service visits to workers at the plant, and will support efforts by Cook County to curtail or suspend business with BoA until they do the right thing. And has issued a press release to that effect. - Dick R.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ProudOldLeftyDecember 8, 2008 at 2:26 PM

    Here are some ways to help the workers. (links are at my site noted below, I didn't want to gum up the Comment with too many links):

    1. Contribute to the UE (United Electrical) workers Local 1110 Solidarity Fund. The families have to eat, pay rent and utilities.

    2. Send an email message of support to the workers over the web.

    3. Send an email to Bank of America, demanding that they do the right thing.

    4. Or, do as Fred Klonsky did, and get out there and bring the workers some coffee!

    Links for all the support actions are here:
    http://www.community-organizer.com

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Best Films of 2023...

By
  Best Films of 2023 Well, it's already early February somehow and award season for the 2023 film year is well underway.  2023 was the first year post-pandemic I was able to see the volume of new films to warrant a top 10 list - a practice I started in 2017 but abandoned after 2020 when like the rest of the world I was mostly forced to watch releases from years past on streaming services.  Last year, despite my ongoing poverty, through a host of tricks, streaming services, tight budgets, and the generosity of friends, I was able to see around 40 new releases.  For most of 2023, I considered it the YEAR OF DISAPPIONTMENTS .  That's still my primary description of the year in film.  Long anticipated and ballyhooed new films by Nolan, Scorsese, Fincher, and Wes Anderson to name a few all left me dissatisfied.   Not because I am an adoring fan of these directors, but given the high regard with which they are held and given the rich subject matter on which ...
Post a Comment
Read more

In memory of Rafael Gomez Nieto, the anti-fascist COVID victim two wars could not kill, on the first anniversary of his passing…

By
When I was an up and coming young socialist high-school, then college student, moving gradually away from Liberation Theology, towards some form of democratic socialist-humanism, the example of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939 made a major impact on my thinking. I knew instinctively and without question Stalinism and Maoism had nothing to offer. How could two of the century's most brutal dictators have anything to say about creating a future free of oppression. What I was looking for was historical examples of a new stage in the movement toward full human freedom, one in which working class people were in control of their lives and their future. No bosses, no party bureaucrats, no cults of personality and increasingly, in a departure from my past, no gods. Probably the first and certainly one of the most influential works of revolutionary literature that I encountered was Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia , hence my Orwell attachment to this day. Soon following were the equall...
Post a Comment
Read more

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

By
www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...
7 comments
Read more