Labor & Employment Law

S.F., Chicago Activists Tell Big Banks ?Pay Up?

By Mike Hall

In Chicago and San Francisco this week, more than 1,000 union and community activists in each city marched and rallied and told Big Banks on Wall Street it’s time for them to pay their fair share to rebuild the economy after nearly wrecking it with shady practices that killed millions of good jobs.

The events are part of a week of mobilization that culminates with today’s massive New York City march and rally on Wall Street and included demonstrations in Kansas City, Mo., and Charlotte, N.C.

All the actions target Wall Street’s Big Six banks?Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo/Wachovia. The San Francisco and Charlotte events coincided with the annual shareholder meetings at Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

The Chicago march began outside the offices of Goldman Sachs and wound through the heart of the city’s financial district. Along the way, activists dressed as greedy bankers, stuffed wads of taxpayers’ bailout cash into their pockets and some, to feed their greed, even chowed down on the money.

Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) President Dennis Gannon told the crowd that the banks need to

“hear loud and clear that we are fed up with their behavior and we’re not going to take it anymore…Wall Street bankers should pay for the disastrous job loss this country has seen during this economic crisis.”

David Borris, owner of a small suburban catering company said:

“It’s totally unfair that we hard-working small business owners and taxpayers had to bail out Wall Street after they gambled away all of OUR money. We have to make sure that is doesn’t happen again by passing real Wall Street reform. Let’s not miss this opportunity to fix a broken system.”

A tip of the hat to CFL’s Orlando Velez and AFL-CIO Senior Field Rep Ramon Becerra for the information and photographs.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, more than 1,000 people turned out in the rain to demand Wells Fargo to pay their fair share for the economic mess they created.

Dozens of faith leaders carried a coffin emblazoned with the sign, “10 million jobs, 8 million homes,” as they marched through the financial district. Here’s AlterNet’s Daniela Perdomo description of the march:

“As the crowd of union members, community activists and angry bank consumers weaved its way from the Embarcadero up Market and California streets in downtown San Francisco, bankers in dark suits watched curiously as sidewalks that are normally financial arteries started to pulse with populist anger. The protesters followed an empty horse-led stagecoach, a real-life representation of the Wells Fargo logo. It was empty in order to symbolize the bankrupt morality of the bank, organizers said.

“An AFSCME union member blew on a conch shell, startling a group of men on their lunch break outside Nomura, a Japanese investment bank. A Chase customer stopped the group in front of his bank’s branch to tell his foreclosure story. He concluded with a rallying cry: ‘This is criminal and needs to stop’.”

Becca Green, a communications intern for the California Labor Federation, writes that when the marchers went to the shareholder’s meeting,

speakers told the crowd their stories of how Wells Fargo foreclosed on their homes, profited from their inability to make ends meet, and denied them loans based solely on their race. Inside the meeting, a delegation addressed the shareholders and demanded that the bank end its practice of predatory and discriminatory lending, do its part to help struggling families keep their homes and stop lobbying against federal financial reform.

Read her entire blog here.

Don’t forget, go to www.aflcio.org today at 4 p.m. EDT for a live webcast of today’s big Wall Street march.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on April 29, 2010 (boomark / email).