"A message to the workers of America"

A few of us were active in supporting the Republic Windows & Doors workers and bringing one of the workers to Oregon for a meeting with other union members. We have referred to this struggle many times on this blog. Now a documentary has been made. Most of us took this struggle as a sign that a militant union with strong leadership at the base and a constructive mass line could pull workers into direct action, even when there are signs of retreat across the working class or uncertainty among workers over how to move forward. Such action breaks new ground and becomes a form of theory and usually wins, or at least makes capitalist rule much more difficult. Here is a review of the new documentary from socialistworker.org.

AROUND 5 p.m. on the cold Friday afternoon of December 5, 2008, the mobile phones of Chicago labor activists suddenly received a surge of calls and text messages: Workers represented by the United Electrical (UE) workers union had occupied their factory, Republic Windows and Doors--and they needed solidarity.

About an hour later, I was inside the plant, along with may familiar faces from the city's labor and immigrant rights movements. All of us had brought food and other essential supplies. We found a calm, determined and well-organized group of workers and union staffers who had secured the property, provisioned it with food and planned rotating 24-hour shifts to keep the plant under their control.

Read more here.