Labor & Employment Law

Working People in Boston, Detroit Tell Big Banks: ?Good Jobs NOW!?

By Tula Connell

Activists in Boston called on Bank of America to pay its fair share and restore the jobs destroyed by the reckless actions of Big Banks.

More than 200 union members and community activists gathered outside the Boston headquarters of Bank of America this week to call on Bank of America and other bailed-out Wall Street investment banks to pay their fair share to restore the jobs destroyed by their reckless actions and to stop their selfish obstruction of needed financial reforms.

And yesterday in Detroit, Saundra Williams, president of the Metropolitan Detroit, AFL-CIO, joined a crowd of union families and communities members at the Bank of America to demand Good Jobs NOW! The actions are among the more than 200 nationwide events taking place through today as part of the AFL-CIO Make Wall Street Pay events.

The Greater Boston Labor Council and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO say more than 40 unions and organizations were represented at the event, which they organized with the SEIU State Council. They submit the following report on the Boston event.

Bank of America, a major culprit in the financial industry’s collapse, received more than $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds. Bank of America and other bailout recipients assured the public they needed the money to loosen up the credit market for small businesses and provide needed investment for building projects. Now, more than a year later, small businesses aren’t hiring due to lack of available credit and stalled construction projects are keeping thousands of men and women in the building trades out of work. In the meantime, Bank of America has spent millions lobbying against financial regulatory reform, executive compensation rules, credit card regulation and the Employee Free Choice Act.

As a group of labor leaders assembled on the bank’s marble steps to address the marching, chanting crowd, Bank of America’s brass came out to claim that they were not welcome on the bank’s property. Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, responded, saying:

I’d like to remind Bank of America that we own this bank. Not only did we bail them out as taxpayers, but we built this building with our pensions and our wages that are invested here. These are our steps. This is our building.

Also speaking at the rally was former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who urged Congress to directly invest in infrastructure projects and loosen up credit markets by lending unused federal bailout funds to small businesses. He went on to say that by keeping up the pressure on the banks and on Congress:

We’re going to rebuild the middle class…and we’re going to do it together.

Said Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council:

Bank of America needs to stop feathering its executives’ nests and start lending to contractors who will create Good Jobs Now!

To view pictures from the rally, click here. For a video, click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 26, 2010 (boomark / email).