On Thursday, employees from the Serious Energy window factory on Chicago’s Goose Island occupied their workplace in order to fight to save their jobs (full report at Chicagoist). In 2008, some of these workers staged a sit in to fight for their jobs, when then owners Republic Window and Doors planned on shuttering the factory doors and laying them off without pay owed to them. They won their fight then, and Serious Energy bought the company after bankruptcy and hired back some of the occupying workers.
After finding out in the morning that Serious planned to shut the factory’s doors, workers voted to once again occupy the space until they could be allowed a chance to sit at the negotiating table in order to either find a new owner, or turn the factory into a workers run collective. At 1am, they won their struggle and will be kept on the job for 90 days while union workers and the company find a way to keep the plant open with new owners.
George Bernard Shaw: “The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor he takes my measure anew every time he sees me, whilst all the rest go on with their old measurements, and expect them to fit me.”