Update on the Sitdown Strike

It appears that the owner may have been planning to shut down the plant and skip town for some time. It appears that, "company managed by the wife of Republic Windows and Doors owner Richard Gillman recently purchased an Iowa plant that manufactures similar products."

Echo Windows and Doors was created two weeks ago and lists Sharon Gillman as its manager, according copies of records obtained by the Daily News from the Iowa Secretary of the State. According to Cook County property tax records, Sharon Gillman is Richard Gillman's wife.

The couple purchased a $2.6 million Oak Street condo together in 2007, according to property records.

The Gillimans could not be reached for comment today. But this afternoon, Richard Gillman released a statement confirming the creation of the new company.

Also, Amy Zimmerman, who has served as Republic’s marketing director, is now listed as the contact on the newly registered echowindows.com domain name. She refused comment today.

As much as it pains me to say this, it may very well be that Bank of America is blameless in all this. The Gillimans may have set up a second company to find cheap non-union plant in Iowa, and then screwed up their credit line with BoA on purpose, so they could get out from under things like COBRA, owed vacation time, and other benefits.

In the mean time it appears that Chase, which had a 40% stake in Republic, is actually doing the right thing: it has pledged $400,000 to the employees there.

Still, this is getting weird, and if this is a scam by the Gillimans, and it looks increasingly so, there may very well be a criminal fraud case against them.