NEW ERA WINDOWS

Support New Era Windows Cooperative in its quest to put an idle factory back to work!

Keep the pressure on Serious Energy and financial backer Mesirow Financial to let New Era buy equipment at a fair price and put it to use instead of being sold for scrap!

New Era is a new worker-owned company emerging out of a long history of window and door manufacturing in Chicago.

In 2008 these workers made national headlines when they occupied their factory to protest the sudden closure of what was then called Republic Windows and Doors. Many public figures, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, came out in defense of the workers’ right to protest.

Four years later, Serious Energy, the company that eventually bought out Republic, is doing much the same thing, and again the workers are protesting for their right to work. This time, they want to take matters into their own hands by purchasing and running the factory as a worker cooperative.

The Working World, which originally consulted with the workers back in 2008, has been called in by New Era to help them make it happen. We first helped with a feasibility study and business planning, and have since accompanied the company as it filed for incorporation and formed working committees to oversee business management.

Now we are working to negotiate the purchase of the factory’s machinery and identify a factory space that will more precisely fit their needs. Unfortunately, Serious Energy and their financial backer, Mesirow Financial, have dragged their feet on giving the workers a fair chance to pay a fair price for the equipment. Instead, they seem dead-set on selling to financiers who would tear the factory apart and sell it as scrap.

Let’s show these folks just how much we care about high tech, high quality, green cooperative jobs! Let’s implore Serious, Mesirow, and Chicago politicians to do the right thing and choose jobs over scrap metal!

Contribute to the efforts of New Era workers here: