Progress Illinois

This is why actions like the Republic Windows sit-in matter: they don't just address individual injustices by employers, they send a message. 

"This Republic Windows saga, I'm sure, is reverberating throughout boardrooms in America," Rep. Luis Gutierrez told the Tribune yesterday. If the following comments from Jerry Roper are any indication, Gutierrez may be right:

"I'd be the first to say to companies that what you saw with workers at Republic will be repeated over and over across the country," said Jerry Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. "We haven't seen this since the '30s." [...]

"(Businesses) need to heed these lessons from the Republic incident ... or you'll be in the newspapers, on TV, you'll get a visit from the union and you could even get your name mentioned by the president-elect."

The Tribune further reported that labor expert Robert Bruno, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, "said the peaceful occupation might set an example for others faced with abrupt layoffs":

"There are serious economic conditions facing lots of people in this society and the current mechanisms for providing people with relief are failing," Bruno said. "Success breeds success, and I think that when workers have nothing else to lose, they're prepared to do something different and prepared to fight back."

Indeed, the immense support for the Republic sit-in and the ultimate outcome has apparently caught the attention of workers around the city:

[Republic Windows laborer Ricardo] Caceres said he has already fielded calls from workers at other Chicago factories asking how the Republic workers took on their employer so successfully. The key, he told them: "You've got to stick together."

UPDATE: More from In These Times' David Moberg:

The Republic factory occupation underscores how pervasively government policy, from local to federal levels, favors business interests with limited or no assurance that workers or the public benefit. And it may signal an escalation of public protest by and for workers’ interests.

“I think it’s time America woke up and saw what’s going on,” says Dave Robinson, a member of the Operating Engineers who came from Wisconsin and was helping unload donated food and Christmas toys for the Republic workers’ families outside the plant. “It’s time we started taking care of our own, standing in solidarity, union or non-union, just people taking care of people.”

Republic workers hope they provide that enlightenment and inspiration.

“Now we’re an example for many workers, if companies treat them unfairly,” Revuelta said. “This will change something. When you’re right and know you are owed something under law, you have to fight to do what’s right.”