The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

To add insult to injury, the corporate agents in government, also known as politicians, are looting incomprehensible billions of dollars to turn over to the fat-cat executives.

Working families have long known the pain of stagnant wages, steep rents, and unaffordable heath care and education in the United States. But there’s no doubt that this recession has squeezed the vise beyond what many of us have seen in our lifetimes.

What’s invigorating and critically important though is the rising awareness that corporations are to blame for the current calamity, and that this crisis is not merely, “a force of nature.” Working people across the country are pointing the blame where it belongs. The elites understand this rising public awareness of corporate wrongdoing as well. How else to explain President George W. Bush feeling obligated to give a speech last month in New York defending capitalism itself?

According to this year’s Gallup survey on opinions toward 25 business sectors, all but one sector (sports) suffered a decline in esteem. The real estate industry suffered the greatest decline in positive ratings for any industry in the history of the poll. Only 16% of those questioned had a positive view of the real estate business. Banking also suffered a precipitous drop from 50% rating it positively last year to just 36% giving a favorable nod this year.

The combination of economic pain and rising awareness of corporate culpability has created a tremendous opportunity for workplace and community organizers interested in transformational change. This is our time: time to step up the intensity of our outreach and organizing around demands which challenge the dominance of the corporations in our lives.

The incredible power of the multi-national corporations is the fundamental driver of misery in our world today from rampant poverty and environmental degradation to mass incarceration and war. Real change, that is change which necessarily involves a direct conflict with corporate power, has not and will not come from politicians, “socially responsible” corporations, or trade union bureaucrats. Authentic change has come and will continue to come from the rank and file, the grassroots.

No surprise then that such a bold stroke for justice has come from workers in one of the great rank and file-centered unions, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE).

Some 200 UE members at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago have sat-down and occupied their plant until they win the compensation they are owed. The peaceful occupation began Friday on the last day of the plant’s scheduled operations before closure.

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