Terrace Agenda

Good New York Times article about the Republic Windows sit-in, tells us a number of things that we definitely didn’t know, and pretty much exposes exactly who was to blame for the entire situation.

…Republic’s chief executive, Richard Gillman, demanded that any new bank loan to help the employees also cover the lease of several of his cars — a 2007 BMW 350xi and a 2002 Mercedes S500 are among those registered to company addresses — as well as eight weeks of his salary, at $225,000 a year.

Didn’t happen, obviously. The article states that Bank of America was pretty much willing to start discussing the situation right away with union officials, Gillman, and Congressman Luis Gutierrez, but this request by Gillman was a major sticking point. Shocker. It also mentions that Bank of America had been talking to Republic about shutting down this plant since last July, which was obviously enough time for Republic to honor the 60-day notice required to give workers (which was the major issue here… the workers were given only three days notice and were therefore owed compensation for those 60 days).

Not only this, but the owners of Republic had recently set up another company, Echo Windows, which just bought a window/door plant in Iowa, employing about 100 non-union workers.

Turns out that this Gillman guy is just a piece of work. And here are his crocodile tears:

“This has been the worst week of my life,” he said. “I know many of those workers at Republic personally, and I put 34 years of my life into that business, and all my money, too. No stone was left unturned in our effort to save Republic.”

You know, maybe he’s sincere. In fact, he probably is. But do you feel bad for him? Maybe we should… I mean, who’s going to pay for all of his luxury cars now? These workers left in his wake only have to figure out how to pay for health insurance for their families now that they don’t have jobs, but he’s going to have to do all the paperwork to move those car leases from Republic to some other company! Don’t you know how irritating that can be???