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New action planned outside Republic tomorrow...

Religious Leaders to Join Workers at Occupied Factory
Interfaith Clergy Lend Moral Support to Republic Windows Employees in Historic Action, Call Attention to National Crisis of "Wage Theft"

The leading national organization bringing religious traditions to bear on issues of labor, Interfaith Worker Justice, and its local affiliate, the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, will hold a press conference tomorrow — Tuesday, December 9th —at 12:00 PM in front of the shut-down Republic Windows and Doors company, whose employees have been occupying the factory since Friday to demand unpaid wages.

According to federal law — specifically, the WARN Act (the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) — the Republic workers are owed pay for their lost vacation days and severance for the 60 days advance notice they are guaranteed but are being denied. Republic's failure to meet this legal obligation is a salient example of wage theft — a rampant practice about which Kim Bobo, IWJ's executive director, has just authored a major book, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid—And What We Can Do About It.

With IWJ's national Board of Directors convening in Chicago this week, religious leaders from across the country — representing numerous faith traditions — will be at the press conference and available for questions.

WHERE:
Republic Windows and Doors, 1333 N. Hickory (near the intersection of Division & Elston)

WHEN:
Tuesday, December 9, 12:00 PM

WHO:
Members of the Board of Directors of Interfaith Worker Justice and members of the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues

Members of the press interested in receiving a review copy of Kim Bobo's Wage Theft in America should e-mail Danny Postel, Communications Coordinator for Interfaith Worker Justice, at dpostel@iwj.org.

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