Workers Who Staged Sit-In @ Plant Win

Principessa

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Workers who staged sit-in at Chicago plant win
Bank will give loans to employer so they can cover severance, vacation pay

The Associated Press


CHICAGO - The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend limited loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared their protest unfinished.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed last week after Bank of America canceled its financing. About 200 laid-off workers responded by staging a sit-in at the plant, vowing to stay until getting assurances they would receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

Their action garnered national attention, seen by some as a symbol of defiance for workers laid off nationwide.

A resolution appeared closer when the bank announced that it had sent a letter to Republic offering to “provide a limited amount of additional loans” to resolve the employee claims.

The bank appeared to side at least in part with disgruntled workers, expressing concern in a statement Tuesday “about Republic’s failure to pay their employees the Employee Claims to which they are legally entitled.”

Bank of America has been criticized for cutting off the plant’s credit after taking federal bailout money itself.

Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for the union representing the workers, said Tuesday that it was too soon to know whether the sit-in will be called off. She said that workers would have to vote to end the action but that negotiations among the bank, the company and union representative continued.

Workers, who received just three days’ notice before the plant shut down on Friday, argue that the company violated federal law because employees were not given 60 days’ notice that they were losing their jobs.

The company did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.
 

B_Austin Blue

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It's so sad - I hope we in Canada don't experience this soon as today I Canada's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate on Tuesday more aggressively than most economists had expected, bringing it to its lowest level in 50 years and declaring for the first time that the Canadian economy is in recession.

The Bank of Canada, in a statement released before the stock market opened, said it was lowering its overnight target rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 1.5 percent, the lowest it has been since 1958.



Luckily I'm in a field of work that won't be hurt by the upcoming recession that is about to hit the world. At least, I hope I will still have a job soon. :frown1: