There are still over 15 million unemployed Americans, nearly 6 job-seekers for each opening, and about 100,000 workers entering the job market each month. Public services and education are being wiped out. Corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness put the squeeze on working people and have created the worst economic crisis in a generation. Big corporations shipped jobs overseas and Wall Street speculators took more and more of our wealth, getting rich quickly at the expense of workers and families.
But this is not news.
What has developed is the upsurge of workers, youth, and the communities we all live in to Occupy Wall Street, and to be in solidarity with these actions around the country. This momentum came just in time, as workers around the country have begun to fight back in bigger and more coordinated ways—understanding that the fight is over who has control over what happens in our workplaces and our communities — working people or Wall Street corporations.
Last winter in Wisconsin and in nearly every state, we saw a breathtaking show of militant resistance to attacks on
For years, American working families have shouldered the burden of an economic crisis they didn’t create, while those who caused it now reap record-high profits. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of us stormed the belly of the beast, Wall Street, to demonstrate that we are no longer willing to tolerate a status quo of tax giveaways for the rich and sacrifice for the rest of us. For a few shining hours, Wall Street wasn’t the territory of the bankers who drove this country to near collapse. It was, undeniably, the people’s territory.
On May 12, twenty thousand New Yorkers of all ages and from all walks of life flooded Wall Street from end to end for three hours. We marched, sang, chanted jubilantly, and led over 100 teach-ins in the middle of the street to protest Mayor Bloomberg’s recently-announced New York City budget, which would eliminate over 6,000 teachers and cut $400 million in funding to vital services to low-income communities, while leaving $1.5 billion in tax breaks to the city’s wealthiest untouched.
Winning the Dodd-Frank Bank Reform bill was an important victory for JwJ groups and our allies, but far from the end of the struggle between working communities and Wall Street.
The nation’s biggest banks, the ones that enriched themselves while driving our economy into ruin, have been foreclosing on homes and evicting families without even filing the proper paperwork. In a ruling that could shake the very foundation of these bailout bandits, the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently said the banks have to show they have the legal right to foreclose before doing so.
That such a common sense question (should banks follow the law when kicking people out of homes?) went to a state supreme court is a sign of how monumentally out of whack our system has become and how much the big banks have been getting away with recklessness.
Across the country, community groups have been challenging foreclosures and abusive bank practices, including the infamous ‘robo-signing’ of documents. Some union and community groups have launched a “Where’s the Note” campaign to help families challenge improper foreclosure procedures.
Over one month ago, Jobs with Justice coalitions and allies around the country took action to demand Obama appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to create accountability and oversight of the consumer credit market was a big part of the financial reform success over the summer.
Wall Street interests lobbied tirelessly to block her appointment because of her history as an advocate for consumers at the expense of big bank interests.
But our voices were louder.
Today President Obama will announce that Elizabeth Warren will lead the creation of the new CFPB, set to get the agency off the ground. Although she has not been confirmed by the Senate as the permanent director of the Bureau, she will oversee its establishment as an Assistant to the President and as Special Advisor to Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary. And even with that, she could still eventually be confirmed as permanent director.
She might just be the most powerful agent of Wall Street reform in the country. And Warren is clear that the battle has just begun, stating on the Huffington
Last night the Senate passed their version of the financial reform bill, bringing the U.S. to the brink of passing the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression. The New York Times says:
The bill seeks to curb abusive lending, particularly in the mortgage industry, and to ensure that troubled companies, no matter how big or complex, can be liquidated at no cost to taxpayers. And it would create a “financial stability oversight council” to coordinate efforts to identify risks to the financial system. It would also establish new rules on the trading of derivatives and require hedge funds and most other private equity companies to register for regulation with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Although this bill is far from perfect, it is a big move in the right direction, and it would not have happened without people like you taking action. Wall Street has fought this bill every step of the way, spending $1.4 million a day on lobbying. It was your voices: in thestreets, on the phone, and in the mailboxes of your Senators that made it impossible for the banks to kill this legislation.
Since January, Jobs with Justice has been working with labor and community partners to send a message to Congress: Rein in Wall Street. We need good jobs, now.
The work of Jobs with Justice members, activists, and allies is starting to add up to a national movement that is changing the debate in Washington, and our momentum is building. Just last week, the Senate overcame a threatened Republican filibuster and brought us closer to meaningful reform of Wall Street. Senator Durbin, the #2 Democrat, spoke out in favor of an amendment to cut down the size of “too-big-to-fail” banks. We also learned that the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs.
Over the last few months, Jobs with Justice activists and allies have been out on the streets time and timeagain to take our message to the banks and to Congress. Last week, JwJ was part of mobilizations challenging Wall Street and corporate greed in San Francisco, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, and New York City.
We must keep up the pressure to break Wall Street’s grip on Congress! Here’s how you can help:
Tens of thousands of people were out on the streets this week to demand: Good Jobs Now! Wall Street Must Pay!
The AFL-CIO, National People’s Action, SEIU, and other groups spearheaded actions this week in a half-dozen cities across the country to demand strong financial reform and job creation. JwJ coalitions in San Francisco, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, New York, and Buffalo joined the actions.
“People are angry — and for good reason,” said Jobs with Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta. “Corporate greed and recklessness have driven our economy into a crisis, and leaders in Washington, DC have yet to offer any real solutions. It’s time to hold Wall Street accountable.”
Led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, thousands of union members and activists from National People’s Action (NPA), NAACP, Move On, JwJ activists from New York and Buffalo, and more took over Wall Street in New York City during the afternoon rush hour yesterday.
On April 15, 2010, tax day, Jobs with Justice activists and allies in 40 cities across the country protested at banks and post offices to highlight the need for jobs — and a way to pay for them. Activists held rallies calling on Congress to create millions of good new jobs, tax the Wall Street speculators who broke our economy, and reign in the Big Banks and protect consumers, demonstrating support for legislation like the Local Jobs for America Act (H.R. 4812), which will create 1 million jobs, and for the Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act (H.R. 4191).
Support is growing for the Local Jobs for America Act, which would ensure that communities can still operate essential services, and helping to prevent state and local tax increase. In Florida, South Florida Jobs with Justice sent a diverse delegation of workers to Rep. Kendrick Meeks’ office to thank him for co-sponsoring the Local Jobs for America Act. The delegation spoke with Meeks about the bill and invited him to join upcoming local jobs actions. Central Florida Jobs with Justice and AFSCME
The income gap between the richest 10% of Americans and the rest of us has been widening for 30 years.
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.
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
“Trust-buster” Teddy Roosevelt understood. Jobs with Justice has been calling it out. Even Robert Reich seems to get it.
This whole “too big to fail” idea is more than just a threat to our economy. So much economic power in so few hands is a fundamental threat to democratic process. “Too Big To Fail” lets these Wall Street speculators turn our national financial system into their personal casino, where they get the winnings and pass the losses to us taxpayers. “Too Big To Fail” lets them accumulate obscene amounts of money, with which they seduce Congress to further weaken consumer protections and job-killing trade and economic policy. When a Senator can say the banks “own” the Congress, we’ve reached a crisis indeed.
As Reich, Dean Baker, and others note, even if all the banks pay back their TARP money,
They still got a massive public subsidy from those below-market interest loans and the Fed;
They still leave us the wreckage of the economy they broke.
As Reich said, “as long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their
There are still over 15 million unemployed Americans, nearly 6 job-seekers for each opening, and about 100,000 workers entering the job market each month. Public services and education are being wiped out. Corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness put the squeeze on working people and have created the worst economic crisis in a generation. Big corporations shipped jobs overseas and Wall Street speculators took more and more of our wealth, getting rich quickly at the expense of workers and families.
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
