[OccupyCU] (no subject)

[David Johnson]

Republic Windows comes back as worker-owned venture
                   
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Demonstrators rally in support of workers at the former Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago on Dec. 10, 2008. 
Photo: Bloomberg News
By Claire Bushey May 07, 2013 
Some of the workers who occupied Republic Windows & Doors Inc. on Goose Island five years ago have bought the business and this week are starting operations, union organizers said today. 

The business, rechristened New Era Windows Cooperative, was purchased for about $450,000 in August and now has five customers, said a spokeswoman for United Electrical Workers, the union that represented the workers in their 2008 fight to win wages and benefits after an abrupt shutdown.

New Era, now on the Southwest Side, has just 18 worker-owners, compared with 300 employees who worked at Republic nearly five years ago.

The transaction marks another chapter in a saga that began in December 2008, when the workers attracted national attention by sitting down in the Goose Island plant after Republic's owners announced they would close it without making required severance payments. 

The workers have bought the business from a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based manufacturer now called Serious Energy, which was seen as a savior when it bought Republic in 2009, rehiring many former employees. 

But that relationship soured on Feb. 23, 2012 when the company told workers it would shutter the factory at the end of the day. In response, the workers reoccupied the plant, calling it off a day later after Serious Energy agreed to maintain operations for three months while the union sought a new buyer.

Serious Energy eventually shut down operations a few months later.

FORMER CAMPBELL SOUP PLANT

After the sale closed, the workers moved the manufacturing machinery from Goose Island to a less expensive location, at 2600 W. 35th St., a former Campbell's soup factory, the union spokeswoman said. Unlike employee stock ownership plans, the workers will not only own the company, they will run it, ultimately serving as the board of directors.

All but one of the 18 owners was involved in the Republic Windows occupation, the spokeswoman said. They paid $1,000 each to purchase an ownership stake. Another 20 workers are on a waiting list to buy in after the company begins operations.

The purchase was financed by the Working World, a nonprofit based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and New York that assists worker-controlled companies.

Executive Director Brendan Martin said that of the 150 companies the nonprofit has financed, roughly 90 percent are profitable. Workers who have a stake in a business are quick to save money, he said, pointing to the decision by the Republic Windows workers to change locations to go from rent of $13 per square foot to $4.

"We could have stayed in that plant, but the workers thought that was pretty silly," he said.

New Era will likely employ 40 to 80 people in the future, Mr. Martin said. Republic Windows' higher staffing levels were driven by the housing boom.

Serious Energy also has sold a vinyl window and door plant in Vandergrift, Pa., about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, according to a report last month in Crain's sister publication Plastics News. 

The buyers were a group that included plant executives and Boulder, Colo.-based Alpen High Performance Products, which makes glass-fiber reinforced windows.

Serious Energy will focus on aluminum windows and doors and drywall, a spokesman told Plastics News. 

In the fight with the original owners of Republic, the workers eventually won health benefits and $1.75 million in back wages.
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