*Okay, lemme see, we got padlocked buildings nobody can legally use, hordes of
suddenly unemployed personnel, and a sudden lack of credibility in both
markets and governments. What should that combination suggest?
*Well, the upshot was pretty clear in Argentina.
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1506/1/
Firing The Boss: An Interview with Chicago Factory Occupation Organizer
Written by Benjamin Dangl
Thursday, 15 January 2009
On December 5, 2008 over 200 recently-fired workers at the Republic
Window and Doors factory in Chicago occupied their plant, demanding that
they be paid their vacation and severance checks. The occupation ended
victoriously six days later when the Bank of America and other lenders
to Republic agreed to pay the workers the approximately $2 million owed
to them.
But the workers didn’t stop there. They are now seeking ways to restart
the factory and potentially operate it as a worker-run cooperative. The
workers are also filing charges against their former employer for
failing to give the workers sufficient notice of plans to shut the
factory down; the workers were only given three days’ notice, and the
management refused to negotiate with the workers’ union about the closure.
Benjamin Dangl: First, please briefly describe your role in the union,
in the occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory, and the
ongoing struggle of the Republic workers.
Mark Meinster: I'm an International Representative for the United
Electrical Workers (UE). My primary responsibility is to oversee the
union's organizing work and staff in Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI. I
was the lead organizer on the effort to organize the Republic workers
into UE in 2004 and led negotiations for a first contract in 2005.
Since then I and UE Field Organizer Leah Fried have worked with the
local on leadership and steward training, grievance handling and
contract negotiations. I coordinated the plant occupation at Republic
Windows and Doors and participated in negotiations with the employer and
the financial institutions involved and continue to work on efforts to
reopen the plant.
BD: Could you please talk about some of the connections you see between
the Republic workers' struggle and actions, and the strategies and
experiences of similar workers groups in Argentina and Venezuela and the
landless farmers in Brazil? How did you learn about these struggles and
come to apply them in Chicago as a union organizer?
MM: Obviously there is a long history of workers taking actions of this
type, both within the US and in other countries. Because there have been
very few plant occupations in the US since the 1930s, we needed to look
to workers' struggles in other countries for recent guidance. For
example the Canadian Auto Workers, who have engaged in similar actions
over the past twenty years to protest plant closings and win severance
benefits, provided us with invaluable technical advice.
But in many respects workers' struggles in Latin America were the
biggest inspiration for the Republic occupation. I had read about the
land occupations carried out by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais
Sem Terra in an interview with Joao Pedro Stedile in 2002. I was struck
by the MST's focus on popular education and leadership development, and
especially the way they placed the occupation tactic within the context
of the right to unused land enshrined in the Brazilian constitution.
The occupation, although technically an illegal tactic, was used to
enforce a legal right. This gives workers confidence and places the
struggle on a moral plane, allowing for more significant community and
political support. We drew on this concept in planning the Republic
occupation.
Current UE Local 1110 president Armando Robles attended the World Social
Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in 2006. There he heard from workers from
Inveval, a "recovered" factory in Venezuela. They had inspired a
movement of workers occupying and running factories, with the help of
the government, that had been abandoned by bosses who had fled the
country. Armando returned from that experience politicized and inspired.
I visited Venezuela in 2007 and spent time visiting worker-run co-ops.
I was struck by the workers' investment in the revolutionary process
and their ability to run production without management.
We drew on the Argentine factory occupations to the extent that they
show that during an economic crisis, workers movements are afforded a
wider array of tactical options. Militant action can win public support
during a downturn in ways that would have been impossible before. In
fact, the film "The Take" was screened in the factory during the
occupation in a makeshift movie theater set up in the locker room.
BD: Is there a plan to transform the Republic factory into a worker-run
cooperative? If so, how did the decision to do this come about? At this
point, how is the process going of setting this up?
MM: At this point we are working to find a buyer for the factory,
focusing on firms specializing in energy efficient windows. Though we
are also exploring the idea of a cooperative enterprise, the fact that
no real movement of worker-run enterprises exists in the US makes this
option much more difficult at this point. The workers have set up an
entity, called the "Windows of Opportunity Fund", to help provide
technical assistance and study this and other possibilities for
re-starting production.
BD: Could you comment on the role the Republic workers' struggle in
inspiring workers across the US to take up similar tactics to confront
unemployment and problems related to the current US economic downturn?
MM: I think the Republic struggle shows we can win support for bold
tactics, especially when we think carefully about how we project the
struggle to the public. Time will tell whether the Republic struggle
will be viewed as a bell-weather event or a flash in the pan. On the one
hand, the occupation led to a huge outpouring of support – from
solidarity rallies all across the country to donations of money, food
and essential supplies. That this support was on a scale unthinkable
only a year ago is proof that this action spoke to the desire of working
class people to seek ways to resist to the current economic onslaught.
On the other hand, for this event to be a spark others will have to pick
up the baton. That means organized labor will have to take some measure
of risk, embracing militant tactics when necessary and abandoning its
reliance on political maneuvering as the primary means for the
advancement of a working class agenda.
***
Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and
Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press). He is the editor of
TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and
UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America.
Related articles:
Finding Common Ground in Crisis: Social Movements in South America and
the US
Workers Occupy Chicago Factory: Echoes of Argentina’s Worker Uprising
On January 14, the United Electrical Workers (UE) – the union the
Republic workers belong to – announced that California based Serious
Materials, a highly successful company in the green, heating efficient
window market, will likely buy the Republic and Windows’ assets, putting
the workers back to work. "We are all hopeful about the possibility of
Serious reopening our plant. This would be a very happy ending to our
struggle," former Republic worker and Local 1110 Vice President Melvin
Maclin said in a UE press release.
In this interview Mark Meinster, the International Representative for
the UE, talks about his role as the coordinator for the plant
occupation, connections between the struggle of the Republic workers and
workers struggles and tactics in South America, the fight to re-open the
plant, and what the Republic workers’ strategies say about social change
in an economic downturn.
–
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
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