[Marxism] Firing The Boss

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

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.

In this interview Mark Meinster, the International Representative for  
the United Electrical Workers (UE) - the union the Republic workers  
belong to - 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.

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 1930's, 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
  
  
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