Labor & Employment Law

Trumka: Don?t Let Wall Street Go Back to Business As Usual

By James Parks

Wall Street has not learned its lesson from the nation’s economic crisis. Far from it: CEOs have gone back to business as usual and the American people must stand up and take the economy back, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today.

During a live webcast announcing the launch of the 2010 AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch, Trumka said the nation’s Big Six banks helped destroy 11 million jobs and they should start paying to restore those jobs. Yet the banks, all of which accepted federal bailouts, are paying out obscene salaries and bonuses to executives while withholding the credit that small businesses need to create jobs. At the same time, they’re spending millions to lobby against meaningful financial reform that could prevent a future crisis. The webcast was live-tweeted on the AFL-CIO website.

Trumka said working Americans will take their concerns straight to Wall Street on April 29 with a massive demonstration. Some 200 events already have been held nationwide at branches of the six Big Banks?Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. He urged viewers to

let Wall Street know that hard-working Americans are not going to be their ATM.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a special guest on the webcast, said the problem with Wall Street is that “heads they win, tails we lose.” These banks are challenging the fundamentals of capitalism, Grayson said, in which winners win and losers lose.

Instead, we see these enormous compensation packages going to people who brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy. This has to end. It’s going to end one way or another. The question is if it’s going to end in a strong America or is it going to end in tears.

Saying the future of the country is at stake, Grayson praised the union movement as the “strongest proponent of good government in the country.”

We live in a world where the union movement doesn’t stand for…[its] members, but it stands for all America. It stands for the 309 million Americans who want to see America succeed and have a good life for middle-class Americans.

In answer to questions submitted by webcast viewers, Trumka said we can hold Wall Street accountable by passing financial reform that creates an independent consumer financial regulatory agency that can rein in the practices of Wall Street.

He also called for giving long-term shareholders like union pension funds access to corporate proxies to nominate persons to the boards of directors that determine who is CEO and how much they are paid, he said.

Trumka also urged viewers to contact their members of Congress to demand real financial reform. You can take action and urge your representative and senators to vote for financial reform here at the PayWatch site.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on April 13, 2010 (boomark / email).