Protesting Workers Occupy Chicago Factory

  SUPPORT THE WORKERS' OCCUPATION OF THE REPUBLIC WINDOWS AND DOORS PLANT IN CHICAGO!

During the week of December 8-13
Organize Protests in Front of Your Local Bank of America Office or Building

About 250 employees of Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago, IL began an occupation of the plant on Friday, Dec. 5, the last scheduled day of the plant's operation. The workers, members of the United Electrical Workers Union Local 1110, were not given the legally mandated 60-day prior notification of the plant´s closing; also the plant´s management and owners did not show up to a meeting with the workers scheduled for Dec. 5.

The workers decided to occupy the plant. They have vowed to stay in the plant until they receive, at the very least, 60 days pay. The owners say that they had to close because Bank of America refused to extend them any more credit. The Bank of America has received hundreds of billions of dollars over the past three months in bailout money from the government.

These workers, who are overwhelmingly Latin@ immigrants, have taken a courageous stand by putting their bodies on the line in their fight for the right to feed their families and to be treated with respect and dignity like all human beings. In a way, they are fighting for the rights of all workers who are under attack, whether they are restaurant workers, public employees or auto workers fighting to hold on to their jobs and union.

We must stand with them.

To all--no matter what your circumstances are--who are outraged over mass layoffs, home foreclosures and are watching the government spend literally trillions of dollars to bail out banks while doing nothing to stop the massive layoffs and evictions that are beating down working and poor people, take a stand in solidarity with these workers in Chicago. You could be next.

Jobs at a living wage are a right!

Support the Demands of the Republic Windows and Doors Workers:

--Management Must Meet with the Workers
--Workers Must Receive 60 Days Full Pay
--No Repression Against the Workers; No Attempts to Remove, Arrest or Charge Them 

"We are sending a message to all the workers in America. We will try to keep up the fight and we ask for your support."
     Vincente Rangel, United Electrical Workers' Steward and participant in the occupation

Local Actions:
Chicago:
Sun, Dec 7, 10:30 AM Jessie Jackson and Rainbow PUSH deliver turkeys to workers occupying Republic Windows and Doors factory, 1333 N Hickory st. (near corner of Halsted and Division) 
Monday, Dec 8th, 12 noon - Press Conference before UE workers meet with Bank of America and company executives. Supports welcome, bring food and monetary donations. 
Tuesday, Dec 9th, 12 noon - Solidarity action at Bank of America, 231 S. LaSalle, Chicago, IL

Charlotte, NC:
Monday, Dec 8th, 12 Noon - Picket at Bank of American national Headquarters to support Republic workers. Corner of Trade St and Tryon in downtown Charlotte. Organized by UE local 150. call Dante Strobino at 919-539-2051 for more info

Detroit, MI: 
Wednesday, Dec 10 12:00 noon - PROTEST RALLY, WEDS., DEC. 10, 12:00 NOON - BANK OF AMERICA, Guardian Building, Congress at Griswold, downtown Detroit

for more info, visit bailoutpeople.org

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In Addition, if you'll be near NYC over break:

In Commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s Birthday

A FIGHTBACK CONFERENCE

Bail Out the PEOPLE,
Not Wall Street!

Uniting & fighting against WAR and for economic & social justice in the biggest crisis since the depression of the 1930s!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17th -12 to 6 pm
Public School 41, 116 West 11 St., NYC

• Panels
• Invited Guests
• Breakouts
• Workshops, including:

• the current crises
• the elections
• the first 100 days in the new administration: what can we do to forward the struggle?
• mobilizing students & youth
• solidarity with immigrant workers
• organizing workers
• international solidarity
• merging the antiwar and social justice movements: is it possible?
• the relevance of King for today
• and more.

Dear activists and organizers:

The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to come together on Jan. 17, 2009 to talk, share and plan to fight back. If there was ever a time for us to recommit ourselves to Dr. King’s struggle for economic and social justice, there can hardly be any doubt that now, 80 years after his birth, is that time.

The people made history by electing Barack Obama president. Certainly that accomplishment realizes a measure of King’s dream. Yet poverty, racism and war remain a growing part of our reality--especially now, as people’s lives are being devastated by the biggest worldwide economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In addition to the almost $1 trillion dollars that the U.S. government has wasted on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it plans to spend almost $8 trillion dollars to save the crisis-ridden economic system. Most of this fortune has been given to the big banks. An undetermined yet small percentage of that money is pledged towards an infrastructure renewal project that promises to create jobs. Yet unemployment is rising so fast that the infrastructure renewal proposal is far too little and too distant to have any impact on the depression-level joblessness that we face.

Given the remarkable scope of the government’s intervention into the financial sector of the economy to shore up the banks, it is shockingly criminal that the government hasn’t declared a moratorium on the evictions and home foreclosures that throw thousands of families onto the streets everyday.

It is no less shocking that the government has done nothing to stop the waves of cruel budget cuts that are forcing students to quit school, raising public transportation fares, making healthcare even more inaccessible for millions, and pushing more workers onto the unemployment line. read full call here