Showdown in Chicago: Thousands Protest Bankers
UPDATE: Check out photos and a video from today’s rally.
More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don’t go back on the public dole.
The crowd is marching to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, site of the American Bankers Association meeting, to protest the banking industry’s greed and irresponsibility that crippled our economy, leaving millions of workers behind.
After the house of cards they built collapsed, bankers and the financial industry took $700 billion in taxpayer funds for a bailout. But rather than reform their failed practices, they want to go back to business as usual—with the chance of again precipitating another financial collapse and need for taxpayer bailout in coming years.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who is joining union members and allies at today’s events, has a clear message to bankers: You work for us.
Showdown in Chicago
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I’m in Chicago for the American Bankers Association meeting. Oddly, I haven’t been invited to the Roaring ’20s dance party I hear they’re having.
Why wouldn’t they celebrate the era of wild money and hot times (which slid into the Great Depression)? After all, the bankers are doing well these days.
They’re doing well because after financial institutions caused the global economic crisis, we bailed them out, to the tune of some $700 billion.
Now they’re in good enough shape to pay the suits $7 billion in bonuses for driving working families and our economy to our knees—to the verge of a second full-fledged depression.
Things might be turning around for the bankers, but for the rest of us, unemployment heads toward 10 percent and home foreclosures continue to devastate families and communities. Working families have lost health care, pensions and savings—and in exchange we’ve gotten predatory lending, outrageous overdraft fees and sky-high credit card interest rates.
Dancing with Jay and Daisy
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When you’re a member of the American Bankers Association (ABA) meeting in Chicago amid the worst U.S. jobless crisis and most disastrous economy since the 1930s Depression, what’s the logical move to make?
Dress up in a Roaring ’20s costume and party like it’s 1929.
Proving yet again that not only do taxpayer-bailed-out CEOs have no shame, word has it that they plan to flaunt their taxpayer-fueled wealth in our faces, the ABA is sponsoring its Roaring ’20s party in conjunction with its Oct. 27–29 meeting.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will lead thousands of mad-as-hell Americans in a rally outside the ABA meeting on Oct. 27, demanding financial reform and re-regulation that will allow us to rebuild our communities, our lives and our economy.
(If you’re in Chicago, join us Oct. 27 at 10:30 a.m. CST. The march departs from the corner of East Wacker Drive and Stetson Avenue. After about a 15-minute march, the rally will be outside the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers at 301 E. North Water St.)
Because when they’re not stocking up on Jay and Daisy attire, Big Bankers and financial institutions are using the $700 billion in taxpayer bailout money to attack proposals like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would actually help working people while decreasing the chance of another Big Bank-fueled financial meltdown. Of course, they’re not using all of our money to fight reform. Some of it—about $7 billion—is going to bonuses for top CEOs.
1,800 Boeing Workers Ratify Pact with Pay Increases—and More Bargaining News
Some 1,800 Boeing workers ratify pact with pay increases, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
UAW, Boeing: Members of UAW Local 1069 at Boeing’s Rotorcraft plant near Philadelphia ratified a new five-year contract yesterday, after their contract expired Oct. 1. The new pact covers nearly 1,800 workers and includes annual raises between 2 percent and 4 percent and improves pension benefits.
2,000 City Workers Ratify Pact with Milwaukee—and More Bargaining News
AFSCME members ratified a new contract with the city of Milwaukee, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
AFSCME, City of Milwaukee: Members of AFSCME Council 48 ratified a new contract with the city of Milwaukee. The 2,000 city employees agreed to a pay freeze for 2010 and 2011 in return for a no-layoff guarantee.
Teens Choose Justice Over Prom Plans
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| Samuel Hamer |
When Samuel Hamer, a senior at Chicago’s elite Northside Prep learned his senior prom was going to be held at the Congress Plaza Hotel, he moved into action. Workers at the Plaza have been out on strike for almost six years fighting for wages comparable to other hotel workers. Hamer knew firsthand what the workers were going through, having been involved in social justice issues, including the Congress strike, through his synagogue and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.
Writing on Shalom Rav, a website run by his rabbi, Brant Rosen, Hamer says he immediately went to the school’s principal who set up an emergency meeting where he convinced the committee to move the prom, even though it meant giving up a $3,000 deposit. The students are making up the $3,000 through fundraisers. Hamer writes:
I proceeded to relay some facts: i.e. that Congress workers made $8.80 an hour with minimal benefits while the standard is now $13.20 with significant benefits. Also, I made it clear to the committee members that having prom at the Congress would misrepresent Northside as a place where liberal thinking and cultured morals abound.
Moyers Highlights Jobs with Justice Organizer, Employee Free Choice
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On this past week’s “Bill Moyers Journal” on PBS, Moyers took a look at the battle for worker freedom during our current economic crisis. It’s a great segment that highlights James Thindwa, head of the Chicago chapter of Jobs with Justice (JwJ), and the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
The segment follows Thindwa, a Zimbabwe-born community organizer who has worked for years to help workers in his community—from the nurses of Resurrection Health Care to the sit-in strikers at Republic Windows. He helps community members get involved in rallies, contact their elected leaders and participate in campaigns to improve their lives and those of their neighbors. As Moyers says, Thindwa’s tireless efforts are:
All in a day’s work for a man who spends his days organizing people to tackle issues they face in the workplace, from low wages and meager benefits, to corporate behavior.
Smithfield, Republic Wins Signal New Era—If We Act
Two victories by America’s workers last month are a harbinger of a new era dawning this year, writes Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College. At Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago, workers waged a six-day sit-in at the plant to demand back pay and benefits after management announced the plant would close. The workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), won a $1.75 million settlement.
At the Smithfield packing plant in North Carolina, workers defied years of massive employer harassment when more than 2,000 of them voted for union representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). As journalist David Bacon writes in The American Prospect:
That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tar Heel, Red Springs, St. Pauls, and all the tiny working-class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.
Three Cheers for Workers Who Waged the Sit-In
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Congratulations to workers at Republic Windows & Doors who made justice happen. After a six-day sit-in at the plant, workers at Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago voted to accept a settlement late last night.
This from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) site, via Jobs with Justice:
The settlement totals $1.75 million. It will provide the workers with:
- Eight weeks of pay they are owed under the federal WARN Act;
- Two months of continued health coverage; and
- Pay for all accrued and unused vacation.
JPMorgan Chase will provide $400,000 of the settlement, with the balance coming from Bank of America. Although the money will be provided as a loan to Republic Windows and Doors, it will go directly into a third-party fund whose sole purpose is to pay the workers what is owed them. In addition, the UE has started the “Window of Opportunity Fund” dedicated to re-opening the plant.
Victory for the Sit-In Strikers
This just in from AP:
Bank of America says it will extend credit to a Chicago window and door manufacturer whose workers have occupied the factory for five days.
The bank says it’s willing to give the Republic Windows and Doors factory “a limited amount of additional loans” so it can resolves claims of employees who have staged a sit-in since Friday.
This is the same Bank of America that, after receiving $25 million in taxpayer bailout cash, cut off the company’s line of credit. The factory closed Friday and told workers they would not receive severance and accrued vacation pay.
