Progress Illinois

New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse was on hand during yesterday's action at the Hart Schaffner Marx factory in Des Plaines and has a report in today's paper on the workers' effort "to save their jobs and start a national movement" (you can catch up on the backstory here).  Greenhouse even gets Sen. Chuck Schumer on the record about the situation:

Senator Schumer said there were buyers who would keep the company in business. “They are in the final stages of putting together their bids,” he said in a telephone interview. “Wells Fargo ought to give them the time they need to assemble a bid that would keep the workers working. Not to do so would certainly hurt the economy in several states, including New York, and might not serve their shareholders well either.”

Tribune business columnist David Griesing also writes about the issue today.  He worries about the "economics facing Hartmarx" and -- in typical Trib fashion -- asserts that "it will prove difficult for a costly, unionized workforce to become part of the solution to Hartmarx's problems."  (Wells Fargo, Hartmarx's main creditor, released a statement on the matter yesterday, which you can read in full here.)

Griesing goes on, however, to highlight the rare alliance between the Hartmarx management and the union locals representing the textile workers:

The recession is creating a strange new solidarity among management and labor. Among the 600 workers gathered in the cafeteria Monday at the production plant stood, here and there a few men in spiffy Hart Schaffner & Marx suits. As national leaders from the Service Employees International Union exhorted the workers to fight on, the men in suits applauded -- more than politely, I might add.

They were managers of the plant -- people whose jobs might be saved, too, if the right buyer gets the plant. In this labor fight, it's not blue collar versus the suits. It's everyone involved in making suits, scrambling desperately to save their jobs.

Finally, WBEZ reports on the hotline idea we briefly mentioned yesterday:

Two Chicago-area labor disputes are inspiring plans for a national hotline. The aim is to stop banks that have received federal bailout money from closing down companies in financial trouble. [...]

[SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director JERRY] MORRISON: We know, once we get this registry up and running, we’re going to find probably hundreds of companies across the country that are in very a similar situation.

Morrison says the union will dispatch support teams.

We'll have more details on this in the next couple days.

Full disclosure: Workers United is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.  The SEIU Illinois State Council sponsors this website