Worker Sit-In Highlights the Shift in the Political Winds

Worker Sit-In Highlights the Shift in the Political Winds

by Tula Connell, Dec 8, 2008

What a difference an election makes. Here’s what President-elect Barack Obama has to say about the 250 workers in Chicago who have staged a peaceful sit-in at the factory they worked at after it closed without paying them their salaries. From Bloomberg:

“I think they’re absolutely right,” Obama said today in response to a question at a Chicago news conference. “And understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”

Obama said the workers are justified in demanding their benefits and pay.

Wow. It’s going to take awhile to get used to this sort of response, after eight years of constant attacks on America’s workers by a hostile anti-worker administration.

The workers at the plant, Republic Windows & Doors, are represented by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), an independent and historically in-your-face union. The company closed its doors Dec. 5 after Bank of America canceled its line of credit. (Let’s see, financial firms were the ones who got our taxpayer bailout money so they could release credit to get the nation moving again….)

The UE announced today that 15 Chicago aldermen said they will introduce an ordinance to require the city to stop doing any business with the Bank of America.