A-Infos (en) US, Pittsburgh, Archist journal, Steel City Revolt! #2 - Workers Struggles In The Steel City And Beyond

Worker Occupation at Republic Window and Door Wins Severance Package ---- Struggle over 
shuttered factory a harbinger of trouble to come ---- On Tuesday, December 2, just after 
noon, all of the workers at Republic Windows and Doors on Chicago's North side were called 
into the company's cafeteria for a special meeting. They were told that the company would 
be shutting down in just three days and the 240 assembly workers, all represented by Local 
1110 of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) would be laid off.
The news was devastating. Many of the workers who were in the room for the announcement 
reported that the reaction was one of shock, anger, surprise, and sadness.  Republic had 
occupied the same 125,000 square foot building at 1333 N. Hickory Ave. since 1965 and many 
of the employees had grown up around the factory and worked there for more than 30 years.

Shortly after the shutdown was announced, Apolinar Cabrea, who had worked at Republic for 
17 years, told the Chicago Tribune, “I'm in shock.  I'm sad.  I'm angry...I never imagined 
that after being open 45 years this business would close.”  At the time of the interview 
Apolinar's wife was eight months pregnant.  He told reporters that he didn't know how he 
would pay the hospital bills from the delivery or support his family.

But while Apolinar and many other workers were trying to figure out how they could deal 
with the layoff and make ends meet in the struggling economy, a group of union activists 
from the factory were setting a plan of their own.  Weeks before the shutdown a core of 
union activists had noticed that some equipment had been isappearing from the plant.  So, 
in secret, they staked out the plant through the night to see where the equipment was 
going.  When they were able to trace the missing equipment to a nearby rail yard, the 
union activists knew that there was a chance that their plant would soon be shutting down. 
  So they came up with a plan.

Days before the announcement, the activists approached Armando Robles, the president of 
the local union to pitch the idea of occupying the plant if it were to shut down. Robles 
reluctantly agreed to the risky plan and preparations began.

Bad to Worse

By Friday, December 5, three days after the announcement, things had gone from bad to 
worse. Not only were the workers going to be laid off and have their health insurance 
canceled, the company  announced that it would not be compensating workers for their 
occrued vacation time and they would not be receiving WARN pay.

A Federal Law, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) requires 
employers to give workers 60 days’ notice before executing any layoff of more than 100 
full time workers.  If, for some reason, the employer is not able to give the required 
notice, the employer is required to pay workers anyway. But Republic Window and Door had 
declared bankruptcy and didn't have enough cash on hand to pay the workers for their 
vacation time or their WARN pay.  And because of the bankruptcy Bank of America, the 
holder of Republic's revolving credit line, refused to give Republic additional credit to 
cover its employees’ WARN pay.

Because Republic was already bankrupt, workers saw Bank of America as their only hope for 
getting any type of severance pay.  Shortly after it was announced that they would not be 
receiving WARN pay, the union organized pickets at Bank of America's downtown Chicago 
offices.  Their message “Bank of America Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out” brilliantly put 
their struggle in the context of the broader economic crisis.  Over the past several 
months, Bank of America has received directly and indirectly about $25 billion from the 
federal government's $700 billion Wall Street bailout fund, prompting workers to ask why 
the federal bailouts were going to help banks but not workers.

Vincente Rangle, a Republic employee and UE Activist told the Chi Town Daily News, a north 
Chicago neighborhood newspaper, “The bank has received millions and millions of dollars 
from the federal government to assist these companies so they can keep operating.  It's 
not helping us.  It's just killing us.  The bank is keeping the money, but it's not 
helping us to survive.”

Taking Action

With the struggle framed in the context of the national economic crisis, union activists 
moved to put their plant takeover plans into action.  On Friday, December 5, the last day 
of work at Republic Window and Door, union leaders pitched the takeover idea to their 
membership.  At the end of the day, Local Union President Armando Robles called an 
emergency meeting in the company's cafeteria.  He asked for a show of hands of how many 
members would be willing to take over the factory.  All the hands in the room went up.

The occupation started immediately. Workers staged a sit-in in the warehouse where the 
last of the factory's inventory was being held.  They hung union banners and organized 
small groups to take eight-hour shifts occupying the space around the clock.

As word of the occupation spread, community supporters and local activists, then corporate 
media, then politicians flocked to the factory.  Within hours the sit-in was national news.

The radical press and even some corporate news sources incorrectly characterized the 
sit-in as a factory take over, giving the impression that the workers were hoping to take 
control of the factory and run it themselves.  Union activists, however, were clear in 
their message of demanding severance pay, not workplace control.

Republic management initially called the police on the workers demanding that they be 
arrested. But police and city officials were reluctant to arrest the workers for fear of 
igniting a more aggressive offensive from the workers and their supporters.

With the hugely popular effort gaining publicity, politicians around the country scurried 
to take token actions reprimanding Bank of America and supporting the workers to bolster 
their “pro-labor” records.  By the end of the weekend President-elect Barack Obama 
announced his support for the workers; struggle urging the bank and the company to strike 
a deal to get the workers a fair severance package.  The next day,  Illinois Governor Rod 
Blagojevich ordered all state agencies to stop doing business with Bank of America.  Hours 
later Blagojevich was arrested on unrelated federal corruption charges.

Winning a Deal

In the national spotlight, Bank of America entered negotiations with Republic and the UE 
on December 7, the third day of the sit-in.  Starting early on, the talks focused on a 
“loan” to Republic that would allow the company to compensate workers for lost vacation 
time pay and employees; WARN pay. Although the deal was characterized as a “loan” it was 
relatively clear that the now bankrupt Republic Window and Door would never be able to pay 
the bank back; Bank of America was only coming to the table in hopes of paying off the 
workers to stop the stream of terrible publicity and public outcry.

Early on, the talks stalled when Richard Gillman, the CEO of Republic demanded that any 
new bank loan also cover the lease of several of his cars—including a 2007 BBMW 350xi and 
a 2002 Mercedes S500—as well as eight weeks of his salary at $225,000 a year.  Under 
intense pressure Gillman backed down and it was agreed that any new loan would only go to 
help the workers.

Five days into the sit-in workers,
management and the bank struck a deal.  Bank of America agreed to lend the company $1.35 
million, JP Morgan Chase, a minority owner of the business agreed to lend an additional 
$400,000 and Republic's owners agreed to come up with $114,000 to cover the payroll for 
the last week of work.

The proposed agreement was enthusiastically and unanimously ratified by the workers later 
Wednesday night, ending the sit-in after almost six days.

A Victory in Today's Context

In the weeks following the Republic victory, several commentators have sought to liken 
Local 1110's struggle at Republic to the 1936-1937 UAW sit down strike at Fischer Auto 
Body, or the reclaimed factories in Argentina following the 2001 economic crisis.  While 
inspiring and optimistic, these comparisons are problematic at best.

Workers in both of the previous situations were hoping to gain something new: in the case 
of the UAW union recognition in the U.S. auto industry, and in the case of Argentina 
autonomous, worker-run cooperatives.  The struggle at Republic, however inspiring or 
compelling, was a concessionary struggle from the beginning.  Union activists at Republic 
were not out to win union recognition or to take control of their failed workplace.  They 
were seeking to enforce a federal law that requires that they be given 60 days notice 
before being fired.  And while the Republic sit-in will likely have long-lasting results 
for the American labor movement as a whole, these workers did not, themselves win any 
lasting gains.

The economic and political climate surrounding the UAW sit-down at Fischer Auto Body was 
much different than the climate today.  CIO organizers in Flint struck at a strategic 
location; Fischer was the bottle neck in the supply chain of the booming General Motors. 
Desperate to avoid missing out on an entire year of competition with Ford and Chrysler, GM 
was forced to recognize the striking union workers, essentially shackling itself to the 
United Auto Workers for decades.  Workers in Flint not only won a union for themselves, 
they fought for a strategic position that would help to force union recognition across the 
auto industry and build the American labor movement.

The reclaimed factory movement in Argentina came after not at the onset of an economic 
collapse.  Most reclaimed factories were operations where labor was a large part of the 
cost of goods sold, most notably the Brukman textile factory and the Hotel Bauen in Buenos 
Aires.  A business like Republic Window and Door, on the other hand depends heavily on 
very expensive input parts—glass, aluminum and plastics.  Restarting an operation like 
Republic would require the workers to somehow come up with a huge amount of cash to 
purchase materials and transport products to customers. In the midst of an economic crisis 
when major multinational corporations like General Electric are unable to borrow money it 
would be almost impossible for a group of workers to come up with the $10 million or so 
that would be needed to restart that factory.

The real legacy of the Republic sit-in, then, is not in the context of some historic 
struggle, it is in the context and spirit of today's struggle.  As the global economy 
faces its greatest collapse in 80 years, workers around the world are going to see their 
jobs destroyed in devastating and violent ways. And as the capitalist dreams of prosperity 
and perpetual growth fall apart a growing number of workers will start to fight back to 
maintain what they have and, when even that falls apart, build something new. The economic 
realities and social and political circumstances have evolved since the storied sit down 
strikes and reclaimed factories so we should anticipate, or at least hope, that workers; 
methods of resistance will evolve as well.

After a Decade and a Half of Organizing, Workers at Smithfield Foods Win Union

Workers at the world's largest hog-processing facility in Tar Heel, NC won the right to 
union epresentation after over a decade-and-a-half of organizing in early December. In a 
secret ballot election held on December 10 and 11, the workforce of about 4,600 mostly 
immigrant, Spanish-speaking workers at Smithfield Packing Co. voted overwhelmingly to join 
the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).

Workers and union activists had been aggressively agitating for years to force the company 
to recognize the union as the bargaining agent without putting workers through an unfair 
election overseen by the federal government.  Throughout the long organizing drive, 
workers participated in in-plant actions, organized mass mobilizations, and called for a 
national boycott of Smithfield products at the company's 2006 shareholders meeting.

In response to all the pressure, the company slapped union organizers and allies with a 
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit in early 2008.  RICO 
laws were initially drafted to battle the Mafia's extortion schemes in the 1970s but have 
habitually been used by employers in response to corporate campaigns mobilized by labor 
unions.

But in the fall of 2008 the two sides agreed to settle the RICO lawsuit outside of court 
in a four-point agreement where both sides agreed to what they characterized as a “fair 
process” for a union election and the UFCW agreed to end its public campaign against 
Smithfield.  Both sides agreed not to provide any other details about the deal until after 
the workers had had a chance to vote on whether or not to certify the UFCW as their 
exclusive bargaining agent.

When the election was held a little over a month later, workers voted 2,041 to 1,897 in 
favor of the union.  On the victory, Ronnie Ann Simmons, a 13-year veteran of the plant 
said, “We are thrilled.  This moment has been a long time coming.  We stuck together, and 
now we have a say on the job.”  In joining the UFCW, the Tar Heel workers join workers at 
26 other Smithfield facilities across the country who are represented by the union.

Over the next several weeks and months, UFCW members will work to consolidate their 
victory by bargaining a union contract with Smithfield.  Workers and union representatives 
say they are optimistic about winning a contract.

ATU Bus Drivers Settle Contract

High level intervention pushes deal, averts work stoppage

On October 24, when Port Authority of Allegheny County CEO Steve Bland announced that he 
would be imposing new concessions on union bus drivers and trolley operators, it seemed 
like the 2,400 members of Amalgamated Transit Union local 85 were moving towards a head-on 
collision with management.  The labor agreement between  ATU Local 85 and the Port 
Authority Transit expired on July 1, 2008.  After months of contentious contract 
negotiations and a failed attempt third-party mediation, Port Authority CEO Steve Bland 
announced that he was unilaterally implementing the Authority's last, best and final offer 
effective December 1, 2008.

The imposed contract would have eliminated healthcare for retired bus drivers, eliminated 
overtime for bus drivers working more than eight hours in a day, required employees to pay 
for 10% of their healthcare, and allowed PAT to hire non-union workers to work alongside 
union employees for drastically lower wages and benefits.

Under Pennsylvania state labor law, employers are allowed to temporarily impose new 
working conditions when the union and employer have bargained to an impasse.  In 
announcing the planned implementation, PAT CEO Steve Bland said, “We are truly at impasse 
with the leadership of ATU Local 85, and I have absolutely no hope of us reaching a 
negotiated agreement, as Local 85 leadership continues to ignore the needs of our riders, 
and the taxpayers of Allegheny County.”

Union officials, on the other hand, enthusiastically disagreed.  Pat McMahon, president of 
ATU Local 85 told reporters that it was the union's position that the parties were not at 
impasse, that his union was ready to continue bargaining, and that any implementation 
would be illegal.  McMahon and the ATU also took the position that implementing a labor 
agreement could constitute a lockout that would force union workers into a work stoppage. 
At the same time, however, McMahon promised bus riders that the ATU would not call a 
strike.

While Port Authority CEO Steve Bland and the PAT Board were the ones who actually 
announced the implementation, behind the scenes it was clear that Allegheny County 
Executive Dan Onorato was pulling the strings.  To try to force a deal, Onorato put a 
freeze on $27.7 million in county subsides until the union agreed to the draconian 
concessions that city officials were demanding.  Whether or not Onorato actually had the 
authority to withhold those funds is unclear but legal or not, the funding freeze was 
something of a ticking time bomb strapped onto already unsteady negotiations.

After several weeks of posturing and positioning on both sides, ATU Local 85 called a 
membership meeting at the IBEW Hall at Southside Works for Saturday, November 22—one week 
before the implementation was to take effect.  Presumably the union would have decided 
whether or not to engage in a work stoppage at that meeting, but it was canceled when 
local president Pat McMahon was called to Washington, DC to meet with ATU's national 
leadership and representatives of the national AFL-CIO.

Top Labor Bosses Broker Deal

In Washington, McMahon and other ATU officials engaged in heavily mediated bargaining with 
Steve Bland and other PAT officials.  During negotiations the process was kept top-secret, 
but it was later reported that AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Rich Trumka and ATU National 
President Warren George (himself a former Port Authority driver) called the meeting in 
hopes of settling a contract and averting a work stoppage.

After four days of bargaining under a media blackout the parties emerged with a tentative 
agreement.  The four year deal included modest pay increases, continued a $500-a-month 
“pension supplement” for some retirees, a phase-in period for the proposed increase in 
retirement age, and a step-up plan to increase employee contributions to 3% of wages for 
healthcare, and rescinded some significant rule changes including the proposed attendance, 
contracting out, and overtime policies.

Days later the membership of ATU Local 85 had an opportunity to vote on the contract.  The 
2,300 union members were invited to Soldiers and Sailors’ Hall in Pittsburgh. 
Interestingly, after months of contentious negotiations and the very real possibility of a 
work stoppage only about 60% of the union members showed up for the vote.  The members who 
were in attendance, however, voted overwhelmingly to ratify the contract; the final vote 
count was 1,338 to 44.

Two ways Table http://www.organizepittsburgh.org/LaborOverview2
	 |Fact Finders Recommendation | Agreement that Would Have	|Ratified greement
	 |			      | Been Implemented on 12/1/2008	|
	 |			      |					|
Term of  |3 years		      |	Not Defined			|4 years
Agreement|			      |					|	
	 |			      |					|
Wages 	 |	3%, 3%, 3%	      |  3% annually			|3%, 2%, 3%, 3%
	 |			      |					|
Pensions |Eliminate $500/month pension|Increase employee contribution	|$500 pension
          |supplement for employees who|to 4.5% of pay on Jan 1, 2009,   |supplement
	 |retire early.		      |and 6.5% of pay effective Jan 1, |remains.
	 |			      |2010				|Employees
	 |			      |					|contribute 4.5%
	 |			      |					|of pay to plan,
	 |			      |					|PAT contributes
	 |			      |					|up to $20
	 |			      |					|million per year.
	 |			      |					|That jumps to
	 |			      |					|5.5% if PAT
	 |			      |					|contributes more
	 |			      |					|than $20 million
	 |			      |					|to the plan.
	 |			      |					|
Other    |Fact finder rejected        |	Expand PAT's authority to  	|
Provisions| management  proposals on  |	subcontract allowing non union	|
	 |subcontracting, absenteeism,|	employees to work side by side 	|
  	 |and overtime.		      |	with union employees. More  	|
	 |			      |	stringent work rules and	|
	 |			      |	increased discipline for 	|
	 |			      |	absenteeism.			|
	 |			      |	Elimination of overtime pay for |
	 |			      |	for workers who work more than 	|
	 |			      |	8 hours	in a day.		|
	 |			      |					|
Health   |Raises eligibility age to   |Raises eligibility age to 60 	|Raise aigibility
care     |60 immediately	      |immediately.			|age to 60 for
(retiree)|			      |Eliminates retiree healthcare	|employees who
	 |			      |for employees hired after Dec. 1 |retire after
  	 |			      |2008.				|2011.
	 |			      |					|Maintains
  	 |			      |					|lifetime retiree
	 |			      |					|healthcare for
	 |			      |					|employees who
	 |			      |					|retire at 60
  	 |			      |					|with 30 years
	 |			      |					|of service.
  	 |			      |					|Benefits are
	 |			      |					|tiered down
  	 |			      |					|employees
	 |			      |					|who retire
	 |			      |					|younger with
	 |			      |					|fewer years of
	 |			      |					|service
	 |			      |					|

A Fair Deal?

In the end, the membership of ATU Local 85 won a contract without missing a single day of 
work to a work stoppage and bus riders in Allegheny County secured the promise of years of 
bus service without the fear of a work stoppage.  The contract that was eventually 
ratified was significantly better than the one that would have been implemented by PAT on 
December 1 and slightly better than the agreement recommended by the fact finder in late 
August. And although the contract can only be characterized as concessionary, winning wage 
increases and largely holding the line on healthcare and retiree healthcare in the midst 
of a global economic collapse is nothing to balk at.

In many respects, this contract is good for everyone involved.  But the events leading to 
the eventual agreement were unique, at best:

Days before Dan Onorato, the chosen son of Western Pennsylvania's Democratic Party was set 
to commit political suicide by illegally imposing a contract on a 2,300-member, largely 
popular, public sector union, the two sides were called to Washington, DC for a last-ditch 
attempt at hammering out a deal.  Top level
labor leaders personally got involved through an intense process of shuttle mediation and 
number crunching.  Over the next four days the union's proposals were reduced by a total 
of about $300 million dollars with little explanation.  Then, local leadership returned to 
Pittsburgh and strongly encouraged the membership to ratify the agreement.

It is likely that Trumka and George's last minute involvement in the talks helped pressure 
the Authority
to make small but significant moves that averted a damaging protracted labor dispute.  It 
is possible that without the agreed-upon cuts, Port Authority would have gone bankrupt. 
But with the secrecy and lack of transparency that is characteristic of these top table 
deals, it is difficult not to wonder if the agreement was really the best deal that PAT 
drivers could have hoped to win. Further, though this long and contentious process, it is 
disappointing, to say the least, that the regional and national labor establishment was so 
hesitant to publicly attack Dan Onorato.

So while the deal was largely positive there are still questions unanswered and lessons to 
be learned. As ATU Local 85 looks toward the next round of contract talks in 2012 we can 
hope that the local will  continue to build strong relationships with bus riders and 
community groups like Save Our Transit, develop a strong commitment to rank-and-file union 
democracy and membership involvement, and renew its tireless efforts to hold both PAT 
management and county and state policy makers accountable to their commitments to the bus 
drivers and bus riders in Allegheny County.

One Day General Strike In Columbia in Solidarity with Sugar Cane Workers, Indigenous 
Communities

Columbia's central trade union federation (CUT) staged a one-day national strike on 
October 23 in support
of a strike involving 9,000 sugar cane cutters in the country's Cauca valley region.  The 
sugar cane cutters have been on strike since September demanding a living wage, social 
benefits and the right to unionize.

The CUT general strike also called on the Columbian government to respect the territorial 
and human rights of indigenous communities and demanded that the rejection of the Columbia 
Free Trade Agreement.

Three leaders of the Cane Cutters strike were arrested along with two advisors.  All were 
later released on bail.

A little over two weeks after the national strike, the sugar cane workers called off their 
strike after winning 15% wage increases, eight hour work days plus a maximum of two hours 
overtime, sick pay, and employer commitments to housing, education and social security for 
workers and their families.  The union was not, however, able to win direct employment 
contracts to replace the system of phony “cooperatives” that has allowed mill owners to 
evade responsibility for collective bargaining and health and safety.

www.organizepittsburgh.org/scr
_________________________________________
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