I’m sure everyone has heard about this by now:

On the chilly factory floor of the Republic Windows and Doors plant, Apolinar Cabrera and a couple hundred workers have decided to make their stand.

Their jobs evaporated Friday when this Chicago company unexpectedly closed its doors, blaming lender Bank of America for cutting off its credit line and preventing it from paying the workers’ severance and vacation.

Cabrera and his co-workers have refused to leave.

“We need only what is promised to us, nothing more, nothing less,” said Cabrera, a 17-year veteran of the plant who hasn’t been home to see his pregnant wife and two children in four days. “I know the economy is bad . . . but this just isn’t right to do this to us.”

This is now the face of the recession, but also an important lesson in history. This is happening in the very same town that brought us organized labor and such things as employee rights, the 40 hour work week and minimum wage. These people aren’t only standing up for their own interests – they are standing up for the interests of a majority of Americans.

This is also just the start. If more and more people loose their jobs while the taxes they have worked so hard to pay go to these big corporations then this country will once again experience a labor movement that it hasn’t seen since the 1860’s.