UAW opens fight vs. Chase bank

United Auto Workers President Bob King announced Sept. 24 that the UAW was closing accounts worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” of strike and other union funds at JPMorgan Chase bank.

“Chase is destroying our communities,” declared King. “We bailed out Wall Street, and they’re throwing good, hard-working people out of their homes. If we don’t take a position, things won’t change. We demand a two-year moratorium on foreclosures.”

He and other leaders announced a national divestment campaign to pressure Chase to enact a moratorium on foreclosures and participate in mortgage modification programs to enable workers and the unemployed to keep their homes.

A second demand is for Chase to stop bankrolling R.J. Reynolds Corp.’s extreme exploitation of tobacco field workers in North Carolina. Added King, “We are not going to tolerate inhumane treatment of workers in North Carolina and around the country. It is time to take a stand.”

King was joined at the press conference at Central United Methodist Church by Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee; the Rev. Ed Rowe of CUMC; Pastor D. Alexander Bullock of Rainbow PUSH Coalition; Vanessa Fluker of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs; Maureen Taylor of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization; and other religious, union and community representatives. Dozens of union and community activists also attended.

“Chase refuses to participate in the Helping Hardest Hit Homeowners program to modify loans for the unemployed,” said Rowe, “but the people are not powerless!” Chase also receives a fee from the state “every time a Michigan Bridge Card is swiped” to use food assistance and make purchases from unemployment benefits.

R.J. Reynolds “has the most exploited workforce in the U.S. in the fields of North Carolina” and it is “inexcusable what the company and its top financial partner are doing,” Velasquez stated. “But we are not going to let them use our money to exploit us anymore!” He said everyone should close checking and savings accounts at Chase banks and cancel their Chase credit cards.

Vanessa Fluker, an anti-foreclosure attorney, stated: “Entities like Chase created the racist subprime mortgage crisis with its predatory lending. They created the mess facing homeowners and now they refuse to modify loans. No laws hold lenders accountable for their actions. The people must act to demand a moratorium!” Fluker said governors and President Barack Obama have the executive authority to impose a moratorium during times of economy emergency.

Stop bank ‘gangsters’

“We stand with the UAW and other unions and with Moratorium NOW! in demanding justice,” declared Bullock. Describing the banks as “gangsters,” he said, “Chase must own up to its responsibility for destroying our communities.”

As part of the U.S. Social Forum in June, 1,000 angry people marched on Chase bank in downtown Detroit demanding a foreclosure moratorium and justice for North Carolina tobacco workers. Since then two meetings have occurred with religious, union and community leaders and Chase representatives, but the bank has offered “nothing.”

King said a national campaign to withdraw money and close Chase accounts and credit cards will involve the UAW and other unions as well as individual workers and people of conscience. He said the fight will continue until banks and financial institutions are held accountable for their destruction of people’s lives and livelihoods.

Throughout the press conference the struggles of workers — union members, the unemployed, immigrants, farm workers, homeowners and families — were linked and strong solidarity was expressed by all speakers.

Chase responded to the press conference by claiming it had negotiated 900,000 loan modifications since the beginning of July 2009. But this claim is contradicted by government statistics on the Making Home Affordable Program. According to the Treasury Department’s July 2009 Servicer Participation Report, 394,075 Chase mortgage holders were eligible for HAMP modifications. The August 2010 report said only 60,932 Chase borrowers had been placed in permanent loan modifications. (financialstability.gov)

HAMP, the only federal program mandating loan modifications, has collapsed. In August, 96,000 trial modifications were canceled by lenders, while only 17,000 new trial modifications were offered. (New York Times, Aug. 20) The August Treasury report noted that of 201,771 eligible homeowners at that time — whose loans were 60 days or more behind — only 22,799 were in active trial modification.

The Chase divestment campaign represents a bold step by a major union in the U.S. to link with the community to take on the growing crisis of mortgage foreclosures by demanding a two-year moratorium. The persistent work of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan has helped to finally put this demand on the political agenda of the union movement.