Labor Union Blog

More than a 1,000 Pennsylvania union members, laid-off workers and community allies rallied outside a downtown Philadelphia Bank America office, hundreds streamed through the bank lobby along with a delegation carrying a $145 billion check. Shouting, “No jobs, no future,” they demanded BofA endorse the check and help finance creation of the 11 million jobs Wall Street gambled away.

After all: Wall Street’s Big Six-Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia-Wells Fargo-received $145 billion taxpayer bailout funds.

Kelle Sallard, an unemployed Verizon worker and member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) member from Verizon, told the crowd she lost her medical benefits but doesn’t qualify for free health care.

While the CEO of Verizon makes 18 million and gets lifetime free health care, I lost my job at Verizon, lost my benefits and make too much on unemployment to qualify for free health care.  How is that fair?

Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Pat Eiding, AFSCME 1199C President Henry Nicholas and AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka hold a $145 billion owed to America’s workers.
Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO President Bill George speaks to the crowd outside the Bank of America.

Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO Bill George put it bluntly:

It’s time to get ours back. The banks got theirs. It’s revolution time. It’s the only thing they understand.

The Philadelphia action-in which members from all area unions took part-was one of more than 200 “Good Jobs Now, Make Wall Street Pay” actions taking place through March 25. The rallies and marches will demand that the Big Six Wall Street banks:

• Pay their fair share to restore the jobs their actions destroyed.
• Stop their fight and multi-million dollar lobbying blitz to kill financial reform.
• Start lending to communities, small businesses and others starved for credit.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the crowd that Big Banks and Wall Street speculators “Played Russian roulette with our economy,”

and while Wall Street cashed in, they left Main Street holding the bag. They peddled meaningless junk-derivatives, credit default swaps, overpriced mortgages-and none of it was real. None of it created a job or gave a loan to small business.

Pat Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, talked about how workers in the trades ‘”desperately need work.” Meanwhile, said Gillespie:

Infrastructure is going to hell. We’re already trained just put our people to work.

As Philadelphia central labor council President Pat Eiding put it, the union movement is letting people know that “working peoples’ voices are strong.” He added:

Today is about jobs. It’s about putting workers right here in Philadelphia, and all over this country, back to work.

Among other Make Wall Street Pay actions around the country, in Buffalo, N.Y., union and community activists set up a poker table yesterday at a Bank of America branch. U Under a “Gambling with Our Lives” banner, Buffalo, N.Y., they reenacted the banks’ risky wagers that wrecked the economy. Sam Williams, co-chair of the Western New York Area Labor Federation (WNYALF), told the Buffalo News:

Wall Street has been protected at the expense of Main Street families. Wall Street must restore the jobs that they destroyed.

Also yesterday, union activists held demonstrations in Des Moines, Iowa; Jersey City, N.J.; and Manchester, N.H. Several more actions are set for today.

Find out about events in your area here. If you take part in an event, be sure to send us your photo or video here.

You also can tell Wall Street executives to pay to create good jobs by sending a letter urging them to do the right thing. Just click here.

In Philadelphia this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George in pledging the union movement’s support for an impending strike by Temple University Hospital’s 1,500 nurses and professional and technical employees. Shortly before the press event, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) delivered a 10-day strike notice to the hospital.

The employees have been without a contract since last September, and Bill Cruice, Executive Director of PASNAP, said “Temple is on a reckless path.”

They are willing to spend more money on imported strikebreakers than it would take to settle a fair contract. We know from other healthcare strikes that patients’ lives will be put at risk by the strikebreakers, who are flown in from all around the country in search of quick money.

Trumka put it this way:

We will not allow Temple Hospital, an institution supported by taxpayer funds, to thumb their noses at these workers or the union movement. And we’re going to enlist the help of political leaders who consistently support Temple’s repeated requests for additional funding.

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) last night presented its first annual Working Women’s Awards to 11 women who have left their mark on and helped build the labor movement.

The ceremony, at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., honored the women for their

extraordinary achievements, leadership, and for being exemplary models for working women who seek to advance in their workplace, union and community.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who received one of the awards, said it was thanks to the work and success of many of the women in attendance that she has been able to walk down the path they pioneered.

Take a look around this room. Wow, what incredible talent, what incredible commitment to working women there is right here. As you all know, this celebration is all about Women’s History Month…but you don’t just celebrate women’s history-you make it yourselves. I owe a lot to you. It’s because of you that I can stand here tonight.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, another honoree, said women’s workplace rights have a come a long way, but

the struggle to close the pay gap between men and women still continues, although we have come a long way, we haven’t completely closed the gap.  If I could grant one right to working women, it would be  pay equity. 

The other women honored were Letter Carriers (NALC) Secretary-Treasurer Jane E. Broendel; UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn; Change to Win (CTW) Chair Anna Burger; AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson; Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara J. Easterling; CLUW Presidents Emerita Gloria T. Johnson and Joyce D. Miller; AFGE Vice President Augusta Thomas; and Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Emerita Nancy Wohlforth.

This morning, The New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman presented the straight-forward, reasoned and no-hype case why the U.S. House this weekend should pass health care reform.

For one thing, he writes, the bill would end abuses like those of a South Carolina health insurance company that had “a systematic policy of revoking its clients’ policies when they got sick.”

What is on the table, ready to go, is legislation that is fiscally responsible, takes major steps toward dealing with rising health care costs, and would make us a better, fairer, more decent nation.

Read Krugman’s entire column here and then call 1-877-3-AFLCIO and tell you representative to vote this Sunday to pass health care reform.