Silvers: We Need Comprehensive Financial Reform
AFL-CIO Director of Policy Damon Silvers has a prescription for moving our economy forward: Make the financial sector the servant of the real economy—not its master.
Silvers debated American Bankers Association President Edward Yingling on the need for financial reform in a hard-fought discussion at the Aspen Institute yesterday, and the differences between the two were most apparent when it comes to protecting consumers and applying stronger rules to banks, credit cards and the mortgage industry.
Silvers, who sits on the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), says we cannot allow the financial industry to drive our economy into the ground again. We must have new, tough regulations that protect consumers and put the financial sector to work for the real economy. And we absolutely can’t bail out the CEOs and stockholders of failed banks.
Trumka: Bank Bailout Language in Proposed House Financial Services Committee Bill Doesn’t Work
Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is delivering a message to Congress: The United States needs financial reform that works, and key elements of the proposed legislation covering bank bailouts fall far short of that standard.
In testimony today before the House Financial Services Committee, Trumka said while parts of the proposed bill on financial reform bring necessary changes, the elements dealing with the “shadow financial sector”—derivatives, hedges funds, private equity and bailout funds—are going in the wrong direction. As proposed, they could put even more power into the hands of unaccountable bankers without fixing the financial sector failures that led to our current crisis.
Trumka, ACTU’s Burrow Call for Corporate Accountability, Jobs
As the G-20 Summit begins in Pittsburgh, union leaders from around the world are coming together to demand tough new rules that put people ahead of corporate profits.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today the world’s major economies need continued short-term stimulus, more progressive tax systems and serious public investment in job creation and regulation of the financial system—coordinated internationally—to prevent the wealthy few from benefiting at the expense of workers. We need to create new norms for responsible business conduct and make sure the economy is benefiting workers, Trumka said.
This G-20 Summit must be nothing less than a jobs summit, seeking solutions to our international job crisis through fundamental economic reforms.
Throughout the world, working men and women must have a voice, and a place at the G-20 table, and the global unions are prepared to fill that role….In solidarity, we can bring about an economic recovery, and we can do it now.
New AFL-CIO Team at G-20: Working Together for Jobs and Fair Global Economy
The newly elected leaders of the AFL-CIO are kicking off their participation around G-20 summit events in Pittsburgh today by meeting with global union leaders to deliver a strong, unified message: We all must work together to fix the world’s economy.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he’s seeing broad agreement among union leaders from around the world about the need to put workers first:
“I’m amazed at the solidarity here. The problems in all the G-20 countries are like our own, and the solutions are jobs, more jobs and regulating the economy. And there is consensus worldwide among all the trade union movements that we’re meeting here at the G-20 on all those items.
“It’s comforting to know that our brothers and sisters around the world are willing to stand up to help create jobs everywhere, to help create a better life for working people and to re-regulate the financial economy and make it the servant of the real economy, rather than the master.”
