Chicago Factory Workers – How A Citizens Revolution Begins

December 10, 2008

The Facts

200 union workers for the Republic Windows & Doors company of Chicago Illinois were laid off December 5th with only three days notice. They were given no severance or earned vacation pay against their average earnings of $28,000 per year. They were told the factory was closing because Bank of America would not extend the company’s credit line. By law, the company was required to give the workers a 60-day notice. The same day as the lay off, a few workers noticed that equipment and inventory was being removed from the premises in the dark of night, so the 200 employee’s stage a sit in at the factory.

My View

Historically, this is how it all begins; a hand full of ordinary workers finally standing up and saying “enough is enough”. Years later, after a full scale protest, that small group becomes known as the “grass roots movement” that changed it all. What am I talking about? An all out citizens revolt against the government and the elite; a revolt that eventually topples the government as we know it and destruction of the elitist rule.

Everybody loves reciting old famous quotes, and I suppose I’m no different, so here’s one that applies here; ‘You can mess with a man, mess with a man’s wife, but when you start messing with a man’s money, you are asking for big trouble’. If you doubt that, just take a look at what’s happened over the past two months. When the elite saw they were about to loose everything, they took an action never before seen. They contacted their guardian angle(s) in our government, cried wolf, and lo & behold; $800 billion magically appeared on the spot, followed later with another $1.6 trillion. When the elitist of those companies saw their ill-gotten bonus money about to disappear, all other company problems took back burner, and they went into high gear to save their own money. And the rest of the corporate world followed suit.

There’s another old quote that I’ve used before; one that’s associated with Thomas Jefferson, although there’s no real proof Jefferson actually said it. It goes something like this: ‘The only way a democracy will work is if there’s a revolution about every 200 years”. And, as I said before, if Jefferson did say that I doubt he meant a revolution where arms were involved. I suspect he meant something akin to what the Chicago workers have done, but on a national level.

Yes, this worker protest/sit-in has been done before, but this time we have Barack Obama as the president-elect, who just happens to be from Chicago, and has spoken out in favor of the workers. So the workers issues have garerned more than just local attention. And since the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, also spoke out in favor of the workers, it got more attention. Unfortunately the idiot governor has since been arrested for corruption, so that’s not helping the workers plight, and it’s taken away some of their national attention. But hopefully, they won’t just fade away unnoticed.