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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka asked for the union members of Chicagoland to come to a Showdown in Chicago for Financial Reform. Two thousand of them assembled at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive at 10:30 AM on Tuesday, Oct. 17. Among them were Cook County College Teachers Union President Perry Buckley, City Colleges V. P. Sonia Powell, Suburban V. P. Jim O’Malley, Assistant to the President Randy Barnette and retiree Mike Ruggeri from Harold Washington College. 

 

They marched over in a body to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, 301 E. North Water Street, where the American Bankers Association (ABA) Convention was being held. As they walked, they waved signs saying “Stop Bank Greed! Bank Reform Now.” Their favorite chant was: “The banks got bailed out; we got sold out.”  There were 3,000 of them when they got there.

 

The marchers were referring to the $17.8 trillion bailout of Wall Street financial institutions and American banks, which has not eased the bankers’ positions toward the many working people who have faced foreclosures on their homes. Nor have the banks increased the financing of small businesses, all of which need loans to survive and to continue to employ their workers. 

 

In fact the ABA lobbied to stop legislation which would have restricted foreclosing on the homes of workers who were overwhelmed with economic problems. This proclivity to borrow public money and then push the members of the public to the wall was noted at the Showdown in Chicago’s rally. 

 

The story of one of the rally’s final speakers, Maria Gara--a Hispanic janitor who had put $50,000 into her mortgage but lost it and her own home when she co-signed a mortgage for her brother, who faced unemployment—is all too common. When she tried to get a loan to carry her from Chase Bank, its employees stalled her, until they finally called and said she did not qualify for help. The call of “enough is enough” filled the air.

 

President Michael Carrigan of the Illinois AFL-CIO spoke after President Tom Balanoff of the SEIU Council, “You need a loan to send your kids to college. You need loans for your household appliances.” As Carrigan put it, “You have needs. The people in the building behind us have greed.”

 

After Balanoff’s introduction, the new AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka denounced the banks. He noted they paid their executives $7 billion in bonuses for driving working families and our economy into the worst state since the Great Depression. Trumka said, “We are here today to redeem the promise of the American Dream, not just to get angry.” Trumka asked the members to promise to do four things:

 

 

Trumka said, “Call your members of Congress. They’re sure to hear from the banks. They need to hear from you, every day until they do something. Will you call them? Will you call them?” The answer from the crowd was a resounding “yes.”

 

Following the spokespersons from the union leadership, a number of working men and women, such as Maria Gara, who have suffered during the last year, gave testimony to their problems and how the banks have ignored them. 

 

Large cardboard cutouts of Bank of America’s CEO Ken Lewis, Wells Fargo’s CEO John Stumpf and J. P. Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon were ritually presented pink slips as the crowd cried, “You’re fired.” 

 

When the Executive Director of Illinois Action Now, Denise Dixon, cried out, “No meaningful legislation is happening in Illinois. Who will say ‘no’ to the banks?” A voice in the crowd, State Representative Ken Dunkin (D-5), said: “I will.” The Reverend Jesse Jackson, another national figure like Trumka, moved many present by both his plea for help for the working people and his prayer for strength for the labor leaders. An emotional crowd had been raised to a high level of response. When they were thanked for coming, the folks left with hope in their hearts and some specific political goals to follow. And the union leaders went into the ABA Convention with their heads held high.

 

On his way out, President Dennis Gannon of the Chicago Federation of Labor said, “It is corporate greed when Wall Street can get a bailout right away while Main Street is still waiting for help. Frankly, it is all about keeping people working; we need work to keep families together.”

 

Afterwards, Perry Buckley noted that the working people who told their stories of being snubbed by banks were the most moving speakers. He stated that though he was always trying to negotiate contracts with good pay and better working conditions, the bottom line of any union when the heat comes down is: “You have to protect peoples’ jobs; that’s our basic job as union leaders.”

 

Sonia Powell noted the Showdown in Chicago was the first volley of the unions’ standing up to the economic elite of the corporate CEOs and the financiers of Wall Street. “We must keep registering our complaints, as the speakers said, and call our congressmen. This is not an easy dig-out; there is a lot more work to do.”