chicago factory workers' takeover

Notes from republic window & Door factory workers takeover

We had the franklin house vegan potluck/meeting Sunday night and, of course I was late. I told sean they could start without me, but it turns out I kind of would have wanted to be there. Basically, the members of the collective thought it a worthy cause to take a trip to Chicago in solidarity with the republic window and door factory workers, who are taking place in a factory takeover because they were refused their severance pay for being laid off. Sean and I were going to hop a train and head south for a little trip anyway, but I was down to change those plans to go on a collective mission to support our troops, so to speak. We decided to leave at six in the morning on Monday, to head out to Chicago, myself, amen, ikon, coop, crass, and stew. First, of course, I had a prior engagement to kick it wit l and anna at this rap studio in no co. dudes there were chill as fuck, passin blunts around 2 at a time like it wasn’t nothing. Came back to find amen & ikon watching ‘the take’ a naomi Klein movie about a workers revolt in argentina. Ikon & I watched it until it just stopped working (google video, like the rest of my technological life, is run by the new world order). Sleep. Wake up at six to find we all woke up at six and no one was in any shape to be on the road. After some tea and banana ginger oatmeal, we headed out, first to black bear for some supplies, then to south city to hit up the basement for some scrills. Black bear wasn’t open yet, but once we hit the road for about a half hour, we got a call saying they would be there at 9. It was 9. Oh well, on the road to Chicago in two cars, with six people, driving towards the birthplace of the iww and the haymarket to fuck shit up and do it all for love. Ikon and coop just don’t shut the fuck up on car rides, apparently ever. Amen & I split the driving, and I picked up a nasty habit in the process. 6 hours, 5 cups of tea, 4 cigarettes, 3 words out of the girls, 2 piss breaks and 1 text message later, we hit the windy streets of the chi.
First, hit the factory. About 45-50 people were outside, although we were told there was as many as 300 out here Saturday night. The movement needs more bodies. Some big ole union brothers from uew local 150 were out there as some big bad motherfuckers in case anyone came trying to get in from the other side. A woman came out with Mexican hot chocolate, seasoned perfectly with cinnamon and spice to quell the cold for a bit. Our brothers from the union takin over the factory appeared, and we proceeded to peacefully march in the street, chanting, in Spanish mostly. The first thing to know about this strike is that most of the workers, upwards of 90 percent, are latino workers, former immigrants who have gained legal status and are working americans. It would later appear racist to us that there wasn’t more support at the factory. This was amen’s initial theory, that we all came to understand quite quickly, that the white union heads had their racist heads up their asses viewing these workers, doing in practice what unions preach, were unworthy of their support because they were latino. Pigs. I sympathize with them no more than I sympathize with a cop. No wobblies out either when we got here, although we would later meet some who basically claimed to be on break. On break from the revolution, sounds like white people. A security guard came in to tell us to get out of the streets, and everyone pretty much cordially accepted, while I videotaped her. She threatened to ‘lock me up’ if I didn’t move. I moved, knowing I wasn’t goin out like that.
After a couple hours out in the cold, wet chi-town weather with the workers, we moved on, looking to hit up the weiser house, an anarchist run collective in Chicago. We thought it was north kedzie, but It was south, so like 30 blocks later, we hit the weiser, a huge fuckin warehouse on the southside. Coop co-opted a worker in the downstairs area into giving us a key for the place, and we kinda just broke in, except we had a key. A couple peeps were home, cookin some sweet potato fries, so we joined them. The weiser house is a cool fuckin space. It’s huge, and there’s all these lofts and different rooms all over the place. The people are legit, I think we always take some warming up to, but they are very hospitable. Stuffed some irish into a bowl and enjoyed some conversation. Found out a vegan potluck tonight Computer was running like shit from the cold, and we decided to head back to the factory for an update. Turns out there was an announcement to be made from the meetings between the workers and bank of america. The congressman told us that the workers would, “have a happy holidays”. our first thoughts were ‘what about easter?’ despite his saying that, there was no real news coming from this conference.
We headed over to the vegan potluck next. Great food, cool people to kick it with. Stepped outside to feed my new need, and within a minute of the Chicago anarchists finding out a saint louis kid had cigarettes, they were gone, the whole pack, with everyone giving that same excuse, “they’re like 8 bucks a pack here.” I already wanna quit. We didn’t see any of these kids at the factory earlier in the day (nor would we see many of them later) but they watched the naomi Klein movie “the take” about a workers takeover of a factory in Argentina, once again proving themselves to be great armchair activists. The radio show was looming, and we thought we had pretty good material to work with, so Ikon, Amen and I rolled back to the weiser for some wi-fi. Hosted the radio show, but the switchboard was acting up and the previous 24 hours were starting to get to us. Called it quits after a solid hour, and soon thereafter a bunch of kids from the potluck came back to weiser haus. Spirits were high, we played some music, talked some shit and the bowl went passing around the room. Crass slept. Coop and I chilled on the couch while the old homeless guy who lives there danced in front of us. There was a lot of odwalla smoothies and bars at the house, apparently the dumpsters in Chicago are not all locked up like in saint loser. After getting my giggles on, I quickly laid down on the cold, hard floor and passed the fuck out.
Woke up to the sound of the weiser kids saying the cops might be raiding the factory. Shit my body was hurting from sleepin on that floor. Hopped up for a cup of Joe. Had to wake amen up from sleepin in this loft, and when he woke up, the fake rat hanging above his mattress that he didn’t notice the night before scared the shit out of him. We got the gang up and ready and made some phone calls to see what the real deal was. Coffee and skinny white pimp dicks allowed us to focus, and we got ryan with the van to come by and load up some peeps.
We get to the factory, and there ain’t no fuckin police raid, but there was some religious vulture group out there giving a press conference for why their organization is so great for being here. First person we see is the resident black reverend, trying to pull off his best mlk. I love mlk, and this brotha was no mlk. This speech was less powerful than colin farrel’s last 10 movies. Then, after token, the resident jewish guy who brought a check got to speak. Amen tried to get up and say something after this guy, and was shut out by the vultures. “we have a program scheduled here” I explained to one of them that it shouldn’t be just jews with money that get to talk. “what are you, a fuckin Nazi?” goddamnit, I should’ve just said rich people. ‘no we’re not Nazis,’ I had to explain, ‘in fact, I’m jewish.’ they told amen he could speak after they were done, so we sort of shut up to be polite. Then, they ended the fuckin thing with a prayer and all walked away. So he got up and tried to let them know of their history of resistance, jesus flippin tables at the temple, moses doin his thang, and they pretty much ignored it. The anarchists left soon thereafter. Then, this girl who started off by saying, “look, I’m an anarchist, but…” started bombarding amen with benign comments about how he was using his white male privilege to get up and speak. Yeah, who the fuck does he think he is? Trying to speak up for the workers while all the hacks showed up for a half hour and donated sixteen dollars and sixty-six cents to each worker. Who are we to come up here and want to help without five thousand dollars? She backed her argument about how he was using white male privilege with the fact that he was using white male privilege. Get the fuck outta here! In here defense, she was standing next to a black dude. But this old wobblie said it best, “white guilt is a form of white supremacy.” done and done. Go back to your star bucks latte with your white guilt. Six white kids from saint loser just drove six hours to help a ninety percent latino union. And didn’t fuckin think twice. Go max out your bank of america account and call mom to bitch about how broke you are.
There was only about 20 people left at the factory. We went back to the car to warm up for a bit, 8 kids crammed into crass’ car. We wanted to get back to the weiser haus to see if people were wanting to take action or if we should head back to saint loser. Stew was still over at the factory, being offered a job by some swindler pre-paid lawyer. At the workers strike, she was excited to get offered a job. (speechless). When she did come back over, it was to inform us that she was giving these other kids a ride to the train. Not a collective decision there, she just told us what she was doing. So we sat and waited on her to get back. She got back sometime later and we headed back to weiser. We were starting to get a little restless with the lack of action being taken by the unions, the working class and us, the anarchists. We decided to say our goodbyes to the awesome kids at weiser haus and head back down 55 to saint loser. First, we collectively decided, we would get some vegan burritos at mama citas, a place coop knew about. So we packed out shit, thanked the weiser kids for the hospitality, and hit the road. But stew wanted to stay. We told her she could, we would just take 5 back in the other car and see her later, but she wanted to eat with us first. Ok, so her and crass got in one car, and us 4 got in the other and headed north for burritos. We noticed they weren’t behind us pretty soon thereafter. Turns out, stew was trying to get crass to stay down with her. Again, that’s cool, but we agreed to do it over dinner. So ikon, coop, amen and myself hit the vegan burrito spot. We ate a good dinner and enjoyed some more great talks, but no sign of crass and stew. We stayed at that restaurant for 2 hours, with two phone calls from their car that accomplished little. We ended up leaving and meeting them at a gas station. Picked up crass to hit the road, and stew went on her way, her excuse was that she wanted crass to take her car back in the morning so she could take a train. She had never taken a train before. She didn’t even have any money and spent some of the trip yelling at her parents for money. Money that didn’t come as long as we were there.
The car ride home had all kinds of chances to be one of the more awkward car rides I’ve taken part in, but the openness of this collective is on the come-up. We hashed things with crass out easily, aired our grievances, and listened to some national petroleum radio. They were talking about governor Blagojevich of Illinois, who had come out the day before and said the state was not doing business with bank of america until the workers were at least given their severance pay. Turns out, when you fuck with bank of america, even if you are a fucking governor, you end up getting arrested the next fucking day. This was a 5 year long investigation, we’re told, and this just happens to be the day he’s arrested? I’m crying foul right now. And fuck Blagojevich, by the way, not like he’s a great guy, but I get the feeling this was no coincidence. I bet he saw this coming and tried to save face, and they saw him saving face and destroyed his face just as easily. The ride home basically consisted of talks about the collective, Chomsky, hand jobs, the outcome of the meeting with bank of america and the workers, amen driving, and us 5 youngsters half-sleeping, half answering the questions from the driver’s seat. Oh and some sing-a-longs, my god, some great sing-a-longs. “your so vein, I bet you think this song is about you.”
About an hour out of saint loser, we got the best possible news for our cause, but the worst possible having just driven back: the workers were offered their severance pay and vacation pay, and they turned it down. Fuck yeah. And just fuck. I wanted to be there for this. This was why we wanted to go. If the workers wanted only a paycheck, we wanted to convince them to demand the factory for themselves. This idea was being discussed amongst workers when we got there, and now they were sticking to their words.