Unions Map Make Wall Street Play Blitz On Goldman, U.s. Banks
Did they realize, Trumka asked, that Wall Street bankers gave their employees $16.2 billion in bonuses? “If you and your fellow workers had a chance to talk to some of those Wall Street people, what would they say?” Trumka asked.
“How can you look in the face of a real working man,” Esteban Contreras said. The community activists listening at the union hall in Orlando, Florida, last week booed and hissed.
Trumka, head of the nations largest union organization, is hoping to tap into that kind of anger at Wall Street with two weeks of protests aimed at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable securities firm in U.S. history, and the countrys five other largest banks. The AFL-CIO says it plans 200 events covering all 50 states, starting March 15.
“Wall Street has become a symbol of greed run amok, and what labor is doing here is seeking to demonstrate that it is speaking for working families generally, union member or non- union member,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
At the “Make Wall Street Pay” rallies, which the AFL-CIO plans to announce today, union members will push for a transaction tax on securities trading to help pay for the $900 billion they want the government to spend on creating new jobs. Thats 60 times the $15 billion approved by the Senate last month. The House of Representatives last week passed an $18 billion measure.
Demanding More
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said he opposes the transaction tax, though Trumka says it has support in the White House. He declined to say who the backers are.
Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs in New York, declined to comment.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. “recognizes Americans are demanding more from their financial institutions during these difficult economic times” and is “committed to serving the financial needs of businesses and individuals, keeping credit flowing, and working to help those in financial distress find solutions,” spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said.
The unions also plan protests at Bank of America Corp., based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New York-based banks JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley.
Bank of America spokeswoman Kelly Sapp declined to comment on the protests, as did Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Jeanmarie McFadden and JPMorgans Jennifer Zuccarelli.
Dwindling Ranks
Labor unions have failed to achieve some of their top goals since Democrats, their traditional political allies, took control of the White House and Congress. Their principal legislative priority, the so-called card-check bill making it easier to organize, has stalled, even though President Barack Obama embraced it during his presidential campaign.
Obama also pressed labor leaders to back a tax on expensive health insurance plans, including those that cover some union members, as part of an effort to overhaul health care. The National Labor Relations Board has been dormant for two years as Obama and congressional Democrats failed to get a union ally installed.
By targeting banks, unions are trying to bring energy to a labor movement that has seen its ranks dwindle. Union membership in the private sector declined in 2009 to a record low of 7.2 percent of all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unions represented about 35 percent of the private- sector workers in the mid-1950s, and 17 percent as recently as 1983.
SEIU Protests
“Unions dont have the clout they used to, so they need to get the general public involved, maybe even people who are not normally union supporters, and remind them they are getting the short end of the stick,” said Charles Craver, a labor professor at George Washington University in Washington.
The rallies are similar to efforts by the Service Employees International Union, which has been targeting big banks for years. In November, SEIU president Andy Stern staged a rally outside Goldman Sachss Washington office, calling for the bank to cancel its bonuses. The SEIU, with 2.2 million members, is the nations largest union.