Activism

It's Time To Tell The Banks "Enough Is Enough"

Keith Kelleher — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:28:04 -0700

On the backs of the ordinary Americans, big banks have created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

American taxpayers came to the rescue with bailout money, but the banks refuse to work to make our economy stronger for everyone. Through unfair lending practices like subprime mortgages and predatory loans, big banks are continuing to drag this nation into bankruptcy and foreclosure.

Let me give you two examples of the corporate greed that continues to plague our financial system.

This month Ken Lewis resigned as CEO of Bank of America because he, among other things, lied to regulators about big bonuses going to bank executives. Now Bank of America is giving him $68.8 million on his way out the door! That’s taxpayer money! We bailed them out, and now they’re using our money to line their pockets.

Also this month, JP Morgan and other big banks agreed to pay out $100 million to settle a lawsuit after they helped a subprime lender in Philadelphia take advantage of American consumers and lie about the value of their assets. It looks like big banks will lie, cheat, and steal to protect their own, but what are they doing for us? What are they doing to help ordinary Americans?

It’s time to change the way big banks do business in this country. We’ve got to stand up together and call on big banks to fix what they broke.

On October 27th, while all the big bank executives descend on Chicago for their annual conference, they will be greeted with a single message: Enough is enough. We’ve had it.

On Tuesday October 27th, please join over 6,000 Chicagoans as we fight back. We march at 10:30 am from Wacker and Stetson. We rally at 11 am at the Chicago Sheraton at 301 E. North Water. They will hear us loud and clear.

Help spread the word. The time to act is now.

For more information, or to RSVP for the march and rally, visit www.StopBankGreed.org.

Keith Kelleher is the president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana (HCII). With over 85,000 members, SEIU HCII is the largest union local of any union in Illinois and the Midwest, and the fifth largest local of SEIU.

Full disclosure: The SEIU Illinois State Council sponsors Progress Illinois.

Health Care Reform Comes To Blue Cross' Front Door

Angela Caputo — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:05:43 -0700

The private health insurance industry has gone to great lengths -- and spent big bucks -- to put a stranglehold on the health care reform debate. By the nonprofit watchdog Public Campaign Action Fund's count, insurance companies and HMOs have spent nearly $700,000 per day lobbying against reforms this year. And no reform has received more scrutiny than the public option, which seeks to cover the uninsured and bring the cost of private premiums back down to earth.

Today, local members of the Health Care for America Now (HCAN) coalition staged a rally at the doors of Blue Cross/Blue Shield's Chicago headquarters to push back against the industry's anti-reform efforts and voice their support for the public plan.

"Last year two Blue Cross/Blue Shield executives got a combined bonus of $26 million," the Campaign for Better Health Care's Jonathan VanderBrug said. "They have been partying with our money. All the while denying us care ... The party for them stops now." Watch an excerpt from his remarks:

Other HCAN coalition members -- including Citizen Action/Illinois, the SEIU Illinois State Council (which sponsors this website), AFSCME Council 31, the AIDS Foundation, Illinois PIRG, and the Illinois Mainstreet Alliance -- came out to shame the insurance companies for their abusive practices, such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and rewarding employees for blocking claims. Several small business owners and laid off workers also spoke about going without coverage because they've priced out or barred from the market. "I want you to remember what this fight is about," Citizen Action's William McNary told the crowd. "This is a fight about real people."

But McNary emphasized that the passage of a public option isn't going to come without a fight. "You won't get it because it's fair or it's right or because Blue Cross executive get an attack of their conscience," he said. "You've got to demand it. You've got to fight for it. You've got to be in it to win it."

A Tale Of Two Protests

Josh Kalven — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:31:25 -0700

During the next week, Chicago will play host to two political rallies: the "A New Way Forward" (ANWF) demonstration taking place tomorrow and the "Tax Day Tea Party" on April 15. The two events share some similarities: Both are part of nationally coordinated efforts. Both are also premised on frustrations with the economic plans being pursued in Washington. But there is a crucial difference between them: One is advancing a specific policy alternative, while the other seeks to ... well, we're not sure exactly.

Today, the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan took the time to dig through the literature put out by the tea party organizers and found himself "befuddled" by what exactly these protests are trying to achieve:

As a fiscal conservative who actually believed in those principles when the Republicans were in power, I guess I should be happy at this phenomenon. And I would be if it had any intellectual honesty, any positive proposals, and any recognizable point. What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

Steve Benen echoes Sullivan's confusion:

[W]hat are these people whining about again? They don't like economic recovery efforts, but the stimulus has already passed and it's a little late to rally opposition to it. They don't like budget deficits, unless they're run by Republican presidents. They don't want their taxes to go up, but Obama has already passed a significant tax cut.

Now let's contrast the tea parties'' "amorphous, generalized rage" with the ANWF protests taking place tomorrow in over 60 cities nationwide. The whole point of this mass action is to speak out in favor of an "idea" for how to solve the financial crisis -- and a very specific one at that:

NATIONALIZE: Experts agree on the means -- Insolvent banks that are too big to fail must incur a temporary FDIC intervention - no more blank check taxpayer handouts.

REORGANIZE: Current CEOs and board members must be removed and bonuses wiped out. The financial elite must share in the cost of what they have caused.

DECENTRALIZE: Banks must be broken up and sold back to the private market with strong, new regulatory and antitrust rules in place-- new banks, managed by new people. Any bank that's "too big to fail" means that it's too big for a free market to function.

Now, the ANWF protests don't have a major cable network or a lobbyist-run think tank promoting their events, so they may not attract the same numbers as the tea parties. But the underlying distinction is crucial: One of these movements seeks to push President Obama towards what it views as better economic policy, while the other wants to simply shake its fist at him.

Moyers Profiles Chicago Organizer James Thindwa

Progress Illinois — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:53:07 -0700

The latest episode of PBS' Bill Moyers Journal includes a 25-minute profile of Chicago community organizer James Thindwa, who works with the group Jobs with Justice. The report traverses many of the great organizing efforts that we've covered here at Progress Illinois over the past year: from the Republic Windows sit-in to the fight with Wal-Mart for a living wage to the mobilization behind the Employee Free Choice Act. Moyers' synopsis of the 2006 big box fight is particularly useful. Watch it:

You can find the entire report here and more on Thindwa here.

Chicago "A New Way Forward" Protest Two Weeks Away

Josh Kalven — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:46:50 -0700

The "New Way Forward" (ANWF) anti-bailout protests scheduled for April 11 are brilliant in their lack of institutional organization. One of the main drags on widespread involvement in public demonstrations is that they're often sponsored by groups that engender suspicion or who push an agenda that is broader than the motivating concern -- an agenda that deters potential participants who don't share the organizers' views.

The ANWF protests, by contrast, aren't based around any organization, ideology, or individual. They stem from the widespread frustration with Washington's handling of the financial crisis and seek to advance an idea for a better approach. As Show Me Progress recounts, ANWF's genesis came as a bunch of friends with organizing experience watched a Bill Moyers Journal episode on the banking crisis:

The topic of discussion on that week's episode was the crisis in our banking system, and Moyers' distinguished guest was the economist Simon Johnson, who has among other things worked for decades in resolving financial crises for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. (Naturally, he has a blog.) In his crisis prevention work, he had helped advise other countries suffering through similar financial crises on how to clean up their banking system, which usually involved nationalizing the banks responsible for the crisis, and reorganizing them into smaller, healthier units back in the private sector. And this is essentially what he advocates that the U.S. government do now. [...]

From their own experience that an ordinary citizen can make a big difference with an idea and a little effort, they decided they would had to find someway of getting this message out to people and to our elected representatives - you know, the people who actually can do something about the situation. The idea is this: create a series of public demonstrations to show support for a three step plan to get this banking crisis behind us. Nationalize, Reorganize, Decentralize. The government should nationalize the zombie banks, reorganize them by sorting out problem assets and flush out those responsible for the crisis in the first place, and finally break them up into smaller, healthier units for the private sector where they will no longer be "too big to fail."

The organizers then built a great-looking website that urged like-minded individuals across the country to organize protests in their cities and towns on April 11. When we first wrote about ANWF earlier in the month, there were six rallies that had been announced and Chicago wasn't on the list. Today, there are 40 announced rallies, including one in the Windy City.

Furthermore, the ANWF movement went full circle last night when Bill Moyers' mentioned the mass protests during his PBS program, while interviewing William Greider. Watch:

To learn more about this grassroots effort, click here.

UPDATE: And to learn more about Simon Johnson's plan for the banks and the thinking behind it, please read his article in the latest issue of The Atlantic.

Illinois Organizers Take Their Message To D.C.

Angela Caputo — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:41:18 -0800

For the past few years, Cristina Garcia (pictured right) has hounded officials in Springfield and brought the campaign for humane immigration reform to the streets of Chicago. Last week, she took her advocacy to a whole new level. Through a national program hatched by the Center for Community Change (nicely profiled by NPR), Garcia and a team of organizers from Illinois headed to D.C. to lobby from the perspective of “what’s really happening on the streets of Chicago.”

Knowing that a former South Side community organizer lives in the White House gave the 30-year-old Erie Neighborhood House staffer more confidence about the prospect of change in the halls of Congress. Also slated to take part in the program are staffers from Organization of the NorthEast, Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, as well as veteran organizer Ed Shurna of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. We caught up with Garcia on Friday to hear about the experience. Here are some excerpts from our interview:

AC: Did get any commitments?

CG: We got a commitment from [Sen. Dick] Durbin’s office that he’ll reintroduce the DREAM Act this year. That would help undocumented students get financial aid if they’re already in school and put them on the path to [legal] status.

AC: How do you think your pitch compared with the corporate lobbyists who approach members of Congress everyday?

CG: We were taking stories of real people … We told them about the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raid at the Discount Mall [in Chicago last year]. We gave the nitty gritty on how ICE locked the doors and threw people against the walls while they checked for ID. This is happening in front of children and elderly people. We think this is a violation of civil rights. There are children being left at school with no one to pick them up after the raids.

AC: You’re a member of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), which called for a federal moratorium on raids and deportations during the November election. How hopeful are you that this will happen soon?

CG: If we don’t speak up they’re not going to just give this to us, even though they said they would during the campaign. We want to see immigration reform on Obama’s agenda. We want him to make a public statement that he’ll address the issue this year. [...] We can’t be quiet. We need to continue making noise. Change will happen.

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Day Six For Republic Windows Sit-In?

Angela Caputo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:07:15 -0800

It’s sundown on the fifth day of a historic sit-in at Republic Windows and Doors, but workers at the Chicago factory aren’t going anywhere.

We’re hearing that representatives from United Electrical Workers (UE) have yet to strike a deal with Republic management, despite an apparent commitment from the company’s lender, Bank of America (BOA), “to provide a limited amount of additional loans” to cover the pay and benefits still owed to workers. While this development appears to be a sign of progress, the dispute isn't resolved until the union leaders say it is. From the AP:

Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for the union representing the workers, said Tuesday that it was too soon to know whether the sit-in will be called off. She said that workers would have to vote to end the action but that negotiations among the bank, the company and union representatives continued.

During a rally tomorrow, workers, labor leaders, and an increasingly disillusioned public will take their disgust with BOA to the bank’s front door. It’s likely that some influential allies will join too. As we wrote yesterday, there’s no shortage of public officials -- aside from the conspicuously absent Mayor Daley -- willing to stand on the side of the Republic employees.

Check back for updates tomorrow.

Seeking A People's Bailout

Angela Caputo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:20:40 -0800

During the past five days, employees at Republic Windows and Doors have shown the nation that when united, workers can take on big business and advocate for their rights on the job. Judging by the public’s response, people are sympathetic to their fight.

On that front, Illinois labor leaders are organizing a rally tomorrow in support of a people’s bailout. Led by the Chicago chapter of Jobs With Justice (JWJ) and several other unions, demonstrators will meet at the doors of Chicago’s Bank of America (BOA) office at noon to demand the bank use the billions it’s received through the federal bailout program for its intended purpose—serving the public.

BOA’s unwillingness to extend enough credit to cover overdue wages and benefits owed to the Republic employees symbolizes the sort of corporate greed that has driven the growing wealth gap that we’ve reported on before. Labor leaders see the corporate disregard for the Chicago workers as an opportunity to galvanize support for their cause.

Obama Camp Looks Down-Ticket In 50-State Voter Drive

Mose Buchele — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:02:40 -0700

Late last week, the Obama campaign announced a plan to launch a massive voter registration drive, dubbed "Vote for Change." The campaign plans to mobilize its army of grassroots supporters to register thousands of new voters for the general election. The plan is an ambitious one: not only does the campaign hope to bring voter participation in the general up above 50 percent, it also targets all 50 states, even places where Obama is thought to have zero chance of winning.

Since the announcement, Vote for Change has been widely reported on as an example of the campaign looking beyond the primary to an eventual general election battle against John McCain. But according to deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, the massive registration effort is also a way for the Obama campaign to have a far-reaching impact on down-ticket Democratic races across the country:

Hildebrand cited Wyoming as an example. The March 8 caucus state got little attention from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and it's a long shot as a Democratic pickup in the presidential election. But Obama, who beat Clinton in Wyoming easily, built a volunteer team there that can now be dispatched to aid Gary Trauner, who lost a 2006 race for the state's at-large House seat by 1,000 votes. Trauner has a better shot this year: The GOP incumbent who beat him, Rep. Barbara Cubin, is retiring. "We're looking for opportunities beyond the presidential campaign," Hildebrand said.

While Vote for Change doesn't officially kick off until after next week's elections in Indiana and North Carolina, the primary itself continues to motivate record numbers of people to sign up. The Washington Post reports that one million new Democratic voters have registered in the last seven primaries, and people registering to vote have flooded the election boards in the run up to the May 6th elections. In North Carolina, 165,000 new voters registered before deadline and 150,000 have signed up in Indiana.

HB 1826: From Facebook To The House Floor

Mose Buchele — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:41:08 -0700

Over at his blog, Hiram Wurf has a post up about House Bill 1826 and the grassroots movement that has risen up to support it.

The story begins with a Facebook page, “Students for the Illinois Marriage Equality Bill”, which attracted over 8,000 online members and ultimately the attention of one state legislator:

State Representative Greg Harris, an advocate of Civil Unions recognized that these self-organized, grassroots voices represented an important part of an activist movement to support his House Bill 1826, historic legislation to extend basic legal protections to committed opposite-sex, same-sex and senior couples in Illinois by creating civil unions. Now there is a website.

That website, CivilUnionsIllinois.org, is a helpful clearinghouse for information about the fight for equal domestic partnership rights, and it offers suggestions on how to get involved. For instance, the site provides a ready-made letter that you can send to your representatives in the statehouse, urging them to support HB 1826.

Wurf has also collected some compelling stories about real Illinoisans who would benefit from the passage of this common sense legislation.