The Chicago factory sit-in ends. The window-manufacturing plant sit-in by laid-off employees ended Wednesday, after a six-day standoff, with an agreement, according to news reports. Bank of America, which had cut off financing for Republic Windows and Doors, said it would lend the company $1.35 million to help pay the employees severance and continue their health care for two months as the workers had been demanding. Also, JPMorgan Chase, which owns 40 percent of the windows company, pledged an additional $400,000. The money will allow the company to pay 60 days of severance to more than 200 laid-off workers, who had been occupying the North Side Chicago  warehouse since the doors of the factory were padlocked before Thanksgiving. The deal also will pay the workers’ vacation time they had accrued but which the company had previously said it would not pay, union officials representing the workers said. The resolution ended six days of negotiations between the bank, company owners and union leaders. The workers voted to end their sit-in on Wednesday evening and emerging from the factory chanting, “Yes we did!”

Rev. Jackson meets Chicago sit-in workers. The Rev. Jesse Jackson is beginning to meet with the hundreds of workers who are staging a sit-in at a Chicago factory that they say gave them no notice or severance before closing, according to The Associated Press. The workers say they won’t leave the Republic Windows and Doors plant until they get some assurance that they’ll receive their severance and vacation pay. Jackson met with the workers Sunday morning, and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition says he’s trying to help get Republic’s creditor, the Bank of America, to reinstate the company’s line of credit so that it can pay the workers and possibly save around 300 jobs. Union organizer Leah Fried says the window manufacturer can’t pay its employees because the Bank of America stopped the money flow. The bank said it isn’t responsible for Republic’s financial obligations to its employees.