The Sojourner Truth Organization: Notes Toward a History

By now, the workers’ occupation of the Republic Windows factory here in Chicago is national news.  Last night I took the kids down to deliver some soda to the workers, and show support for the occupation.  It was quite the scene, with tons of media waiting around outside for a press conference that didn’t happen until after we had to leave.  Inside the factory were dozens of workers and their families, including a lot of little kids.  We talked with one of the workers on the Security Committee, who was staffing the door, and he was very friendly and willing to share his perspective on things.  There were also some politicians scattered among the crowd, and several other people there in solidarity, including a number of Wobblies. 

Sofia was very sad that we couldn’t go inside the factory (only workers and their families were allowed inside), because (she kept saying) she wanted to "go see the workers."  It was kind of cute. 

As far as I know, this is the first factory occupation in the US in several decades.  It has an intriguing tie-in to STO as well, via the union that has backed the workers on their occupation, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, or UE for short.  UE is one of the oldest unions in the US outside the AFL-CIO and Change to Win structures, having been expelled from the CIO for refusing to black-list Communist members in the late 1940’s.  In the mid-1970’s, radical workers at the Stewart-Warner Factory on the north side of Chicago, including several former members of STO, kicked out the corrupt union that had "represented" them for decades, and brought in the UE to replace them.  UE later came under harsh criticism from workers and other leftists for failing to resist the closure of the S-W factory in the 1980’s.  In the present context, a handful of radicals have talked about the Republic Windows situation as a welcome turn-about from the conservatism of UE in the S-W situation two decades ago. 

By the way, a good, regularly-updated source for news is the blog Pilsen Prole.