Plant standoff symbolizes workers' mounting anger

CHICAGO — The nation's grim economy now has a rallying point: Employees at a window-and-door factory that went out of business have taken over the building in a siege that has come to symbolize the woes of the ordinary worker.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed abruptly last week after Bank of America canceled the company's financing. Since then, about 200 of the 240 laid-off workers have taken turns occupying the factory, declaring they will not leave until getting assurances they will receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

But the standoff also has come to embody mounting anger over the government's willingness to bail out deep-pocketed corporations but not average people.

"There's a simplicity and straightforwardness to this particular case that anybody can wrap their head around," said James Thindwa, executive director for the Chicago office of Jobs With Justice, a national coalition of unions, community groups and other organizations.

Apolinar Cabrera, a 17-year Republic employee, lost his job and benefits just as his wife is about to deliver their third child.

"I don't know what to do," said Cabrera, 44, who worked in Republic's shipping department. He has been shuttling between the plant and home so he can check on his wife.

The workers show up in groups of 50 or 60 to occupy the plant around-the-clock in eight-hour shifts.

The union assigns some employees to clean the factory and make sure it's safe. Others take in food donations brought to the door. Outside, they hung a huge American flag, and some are huddled around a fire in a garbage can.

By Monday, the protest had drawn the attention of nearly every politician with a connection to this city, numerous union and worker-rights groups and scores of ordinary people, who arrived at the plant offering families toys, food and money.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who met with the workers Monday morning, said the state of Illinois was suspending its business with the Bank of America, Republic Windows' lenders, and the Illinois Department of Labor was poised to file a complaint over the plant closing if need be. Political leaders on the Chicago City Council and in Cook County threatened similar actions. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez said he was encouraging the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice to investigate.

"Families are already struggling to keep afloat," Blagojevich said.

"We hope that this kind of leverage and pressure will encourage Bank of America to do the right thing for this business," Blagojevich said outside the plant. "Take some of that federal tax money that they've received and invest it by providing the necessary credit to this company so these workers can keep their jobs."

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said he wanted to ask his fellow senators to remind banks that the bailout wasn't to be used for dividends and executive salaries.

"They're for loans and credit to businesses just like Republic," he said.

Workers here say they blame the operators of Republic Windows and Doors, a manufacturing company founded in 1965, for giving them just three days' notice before closing last Friday, with no earlier hints to the employees that orders for vinyl windows and sliding doors had fallen off.

Late Monday, the company released a statement indicating it had known since at least mid-October that it would close the factory by January. The statement suggested it had gone back and forth with Bank of America for more than a month, but the bank had rejected several of its "wind down" plans as well as the company's request for financing to pay workers' owed vacation.

The statement also revealed the family of Richard Gillman, once a minority shareholder who in 2006 and 2007 bought out Republic, last month formed a new window business — Echo Windows LLC. All along, workers here said they feared the owners were shutting down to reopen a cheaper operation somewhere else. A trade publication reported last week that Echo had recently bought a window-manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa. No one from Republic could be reached for comment.

"It is looking like reopening is exactly what happened," said Tara Taffera, the editor and publisher of the publication, Door and Window Manufacturing magazine.

The company's statement said it had been placed "in the impossible position of not having the ability to further reduce fixed costs, coupled with severe constrictions in the capital debt markets and an unwillingness of the current debt holder to continue funding the operations."

The workers here also blamed Bank of America for preventing the owners from paying its workers for already-earned vacation time and severance. Workers here said the owners told them last week that Bank of America had cut off the company's credit line and would not allow payments.

As part of government bailout efforts for the struggling banking industry, Bank of America has received $15 billion and is expected to receive an additional $10 billion. That left many workers here seething.

"Taxpayers would like to see that bailout money go toward saving jobs, not saving CEOs," said Leah Fried, an organizer for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. "This is outrageous."

Officials said negotiations would resume today.

Bank of America issued a statement late Monday stating the company, not the bank, had the ability to choose whether to honor what it owed workers.

"We agree with the statements of public officials that Republic Windows and Doors should do all it can to honor its obligations to its employees and minimize the impact of failure on those employees," the statement said.

"When a company faces such a dire situation, its lender is not empowered to direct the company's management how to manage its affairs and what obligations should be paid," it went on. "Such decisions belong to the management and owners of the company."

Federal law from the late 1980s requires employers to give workers 60 days' notice (or 60 days of pay) in cases of plant closings or large layoffs. Still, that federal law, known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, provides exceptions in cases when a "faltering company" is actively seeking capital to save itself and has reason to believe announcing a possible closing might prevent it from getting that capital.