Actions target Wells Fargo, support UE workers

Los Angeles Photo: Sekou Parker

“Wells Fargo got bailed out, the workers got sold out!” was the message delivered by UE members and allies in more than 20 cities from Boston to Los Angeles on June 26 in coordinated, nationwide protests.

Wells Fargo, one of the country’s largest banks, received a $25 billion taxpayer bailout supposedly designed to save jobs and businesses. Yet the bank is unfairly forcing the closure of Quad City Die Casting, a viable factory in Moline, Ill., where members of UE Local 1174 work, by cutting off the normal line of credit needed by the company to stay in business.

Chicago Photos: UEUnion.org

In Boston, 30 picketers braved a strong “noreasterner” storm to march outside the Boston Wells Fargo Commercial Building. Protesters included members of UE locals 204, 262 and 279, and strong participation from USWA 8751 Boston School Bus Drivers Union, International Action Center, Women’s Fightback Network, Jobs with Justice, students and housing groups.

Over 30 people picketed outside the Center City branch of Wachovia Bank in Philadelphia where UE Local 155 President Ron McCullough explained the struggle by members of Local 1174 to save their jobs and Wells Fargo’s role in forcing the pending plant closing. Wachovia, a giant regional bank, was bought out by Wells Fargo in October during the banking industry meltdown.

Boston

“Workers are the ones who built this country and who make the economy grow,” McCullough stated. “It’s the CEOs like the ones at General Motors who are running the country into the ground. Workers have to stick together and make our voices heard.”

A delegation, including McCullough and John Braxton, co-president of AFT Local 2026 and a leader of Jobs with Justice, went into the bank to deliver a “notice of default” on Wells Fargo’s obligations to the people of the United States. At first bank officials refused to call the manager and instead called the police, but when customers in the lobby began to stop and listen to the protesters a manager finally came to receive the letter.

Amekin Jackson, a young, underemployed and homeless Black worker, was in the bank looking for a first-time home-buyers loan when she received a leaflet. Jackson was so incensed by Wells Fargo’s action that she came out to join the protest.

New Haven, Conn.

As picketers at Wells Fargo’s main center in downtown Los Angeles chanted “Wells Fargo, Shame on You,” their message echoed off the high-rise building. They distributed hundreds of leaflets explaining the struggle to bus riders and building workers. The action was organized by the Los Angeles Bail Out the People Movement.

In Chicago, more than 75 protesters from unions and community groups used crime scene tape to cordon off the parking lot of a Wells Fargo Home Mortgage branch. They drew chalk outlines of the bank’s worker-victims on the pavement and wrote messages charging the bank with “jobicide” and “homeicide.” Protesters chanted “Wells Fargo, this sucks. Where’s our 25 billion bucks?”

Demonstrators, including members of the Atlanta Fighting Foreclosures Coalition, picketed in front of the midtown Wachovia branch. Protesters linked Wells Fargo’s denial of credit to Quad City Die Casting to their demands for a foreclosure moratorium and reasonable settlements for people in Atlanta at risk of losing their homes.

Other cities where protests took place included Costa Mesa, Calif; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Davenport, Pa; Charleston, W.Va.; New Haven, Conn.; Portland, Ore.; LaCrosse, Wis.; Erie, Pa.; and Raleigh, N.C. In Washington, D.C., UE lobbying teams visited over 100 congressional offices, including every member of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, with information on the injustice being perpetuated by Wells Fargo.

Sen. Barbara Mikluski of Maryland responded, “Everyone is mad at Wells Fargo.” The largest city in her state, Baltimore, is suing Wells Fargo for racially discriminatory and predatory mortgage lending practices that resulted in massive home foreclosures.