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Historic Financial Reform Passes!

They said we couldn’t do it, but they were wrong.  JwJ and our partners out-organized the big banks!

On Thursday, two years after the financial meltdown that has spiraled into the worst economic crisis in a generation, the Senate finally voted to approve the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act.  This financial reform bill takes some key steps towards breaking the control that Wall Street has over our country.

This important victory is just the beginning.  We will continue organizing to hold the big banks accountable and work to ensure that the banks who profit from our money benefit our communities.

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  • ACT NOW to Hold Banks Accountable

    They said we couldn’t do it.  But they were wrong.  JwJ and our partners overcame $1.5 Million PER DAY of banker lobbying!

    On Thursday, the Senate plans to vote on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act.  This financial reform bill that takes some key steps towards breaking the control that Wall Street has over our country — and we need everyone to ACT NOW to pass it!

    Last summer, insiders pronounced banking reform “dead.” They said ‘everyone’ had forgotten about the Wall Street bailout and the obscene bonuses — and that Congress was too dependent on bank money as it approached election season to do anything that would actually make a difference.  But a series of mobilizations across the country kept the heat on Congress and an important step towards breaking the power of the banks is within our grasp.

    Let’s be real:  The Dodd-Frank bill, already passed by the US House, is not the end of the struggle.  The big banks are still too big.  They still need to be broken up and reined

    Continue reading ACT NOW to Hold Banks Accountable

    US Social Forum Day Two: Money for Jobs, Not Banks!

    Yesterday was an exciting day of education and action at the U.S. Social Forum

    JwJ coalitions convened and spoke at a variety of workshops, including: Uncovering the Truth on Police & ICE Collaborations (DC JwJ), Social Networking for Social Justice (KY JwJ), Writers’ Circle (Missouri JwJ), The Impact of Financial Restructuring on Michigan Workers and the Union Response (SE Michigan JwJ), Good Jobs for All:  Winning Full and Fair Employment for a New Economy (National JwJ), and The TRADE Act as a Tool for Global Justice (Southern Oregon JwJ). 

    Jobs with Justice members participated in the Excluded Workers Congress People’s Movement Assembly which focused on how we can expand workers’ rights to organize.  We heard inspiring testimony from a variety of workers who are fighting for their rights on the job (stay tuned for more on this, including video).

    In the evening, JwJ co-sponsored a march and rally with AFSCME Council 65 and the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO to demand, “Money for JOBS, not Banks!”

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  • Our Message on K Street: Bank Reform Now!

    On May 17, thousands of union members, community activists, and allies from across the country came together on a rainy Monday morning to send a message to Congress & the corporate lobbyists on K Street:  Wall Street reform now!

    The protest was organized by National People’s Action, SEIU, the AFL-CIO, and Jobs with Justice.

    The crowd rallied in McPherson Square park before shutting down K Street and then marching to the Bank of America.  Check out the video & photos from the action below.

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  • Groups, Economists Call for Financial Speculation Tax

    In Washington, D.C. today, Jobs with Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta joined Wall Street and economic experts and consumer, development and global health advocates for a press conference to push for a Financial Speculation Tax.

    Sarita Gupta“Jobs with Justice will be in the streets today in over 40 cities demanding that Congress tax Wall Street to pay for jobs,” said Gupta. “Wall Street bankers recklessly gambled away our economy, and they should be made to pay for recovery programs like the Local Jobs for America Act.”

    The group called on President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to embrace this tax and called on Congress to move swiftly to enact it. The tax is a very small levy on financial short-term transactions, which will curb excessive speculation by Big Banks, but with minimal impact on long-term investors. It also would raise an estimated $100 billion a year for job-creation, important public goods like investment in rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and clean energy, and providing global health and development aid.

    John Fullerton, a former Managing Director at JPMorgan, explained that the tax is needed for three reasons: 

    Continue reading Groups, Economists Call for Financial Speculation Tax

    Top Five Reasons to Protest on Tax Day

    1. Two thirds of U.S. corporations paid no U.S. income tax from 1998-2005.  Corporations like Exxon-Mobil and Walmart find ways to evade taxes, and get taxpayer money to pick up their tab.
    2. Wall Street speculators pay themselves record pay and bonuses and spend millions lobbying against financial regulations — subsidized by the rest of us.
    3. Tax rates on millionaires keep dropping.
    4. The income gap between the richest 10% of Americans and the rest of us has been widening for 30 years.
    5. Unemployment rates are still hovering around 10%.  If Wall Street paid it’s fair share, we could put millions of people to work fixing our infrastructure, teaching our children, making our factories more sustainable and improving our public services.

    Take action on Tax Day!
    www.taxwallstreet.org

    For 30 years, corporate CEOs and Wall Street speculators have put the squeeze on workers with globalization, privatization and union-busting.

    They used their rising profits to buy Congress, convincing them to hand out tax breaks to the rich and gut banking regulations and consumer protections.  Then they invented unscrupulous mortgage and investing practices, turning our financial system

    Continue reading Top Five Reasons to Protest on Tax Day

    Banks Agree to Sweeping New Financial Regulations

    Right, like that would ever happen.

    While the banks may not see the error of their ways, there is evidence that our government is beginning to recognize that banks do not always play a positive role in our economy.  Earlier this week, President Obama signed into law the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.  This legislation includes the historic student aid reform proposal originally passed by the House via the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which eliminates wasteful government subsidies to private lenders to issue student loans.  It appropriates over sixty billion dollars towards increases funding for the Pell grant, community colleges, Minority-Serving Institutions, and access and completion programs – money that previously was being spent to make private banks into middlemen for student loans.  This is a huge victory, but it is just the beginning of reforms needed to rein in Wall Street.

    TAX WALL STREET TO PAY FOR JOBS

    For 30 years, corporate CEOs and Wall Street speculators have put the squeeze on workers with globalization, privatization and union-busting.

    A tax on the speculators of the Wall Street casino could put 3 million people to work

    Continue reading Banks Agree to Sweeping New Financial Regulations

    Boston Activists Rally at Goldman Sachs

    Goldman Sachs’ speculation and profiteering was a major cause of the recession and now their CEO is giving out $16.7 billion in bonuses. They got a bailout, what do all of us get? 

    On January 21, Boston community leaders and activists marched on Goldman Sachs to demand that Executive Bonuses be used to fund the Ellison Jobs Bill.  The amount of Goldman Sachs’ bonuses would cover more than half of the $30 billion jobs bill that would put unemployed people to work improving our communities.

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  • Sanders Introduces Legislation to Break up the Big Banks

    “If the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow.” 

    Over the past year, JwJ coalitions have been calling for a break up of the “too big to fail” banks, new regulations that make the finance sector work for the economy and a large scale national jobs creation program.

    Senator Sanders of Vermont is following the lead of the people in introducing a bill to break up the banks that would be “too big to fail.”

    The bill would give the Treasury Department 90 days to identify any financial institution that might be ‘too big to fail,’ and then a year to break up all those institutions.

    Rep. Paul Kanjorski from Pennsylvania is reportedly planning a similar bill

    “Trust Buster” Teddy Roosevelt broke up about 40 mega-institutions (his successor President Taft more than doubled that number), understanding that they were a threat to both democracy and the economy.

    Let’s hope our leaders follow the people.  Now THAT would be change we can believe in.

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  • Tell Congress: Break Up the Banks; Make the Economy Work!

    Too Big To Fail is just plain TOO BIG.

    Activists will be in the streets of Chicago tomorrow to protest the American Bankers Association meeting. These banks took bailouts that add up to $15,000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. They claimed they were “too big to fail.”

    But instead of using the bailout to help the economy, they actually reduced lending that would keep people working, increased foreclosures, charged outrageous overdraft fees and – surprise, surprise – gave themselves record salaries, bonuses and perks.

    The reality is that these corporate criminals are too big and powerful politically. Explaining why even minor reforms have been bottled up in Congress, Senator Durbin from Illinois admitted that the banks “frankly own the place.”

    TAKE ACTION NOW!

    They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on politics and they’re using our bailout money to become bigger and more powerful (rather than helping people and the economy through a crisis).

    These ‘too big to fail’ banks are a threat to democracy as much as they are a threat to the economy. Even Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Mervyn

    Continue reading Tell Congress: Break Up the Banks; Make the Economy Work!