Unions plan protests of big banks
WASHINGTON – AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is hoping to tap into average Americans’ anger at Wall Street as his organization plans a blitz of protests over the next couple of weeks.
The protests are aimed at Goldman Sachs Group, the most profitable securities firm in U.S. history, and the country’s five other largest banks.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union organization, says it plans 200 events covering all 50 states starting Monday.
“Wall Street has become a symbol of greed run amok, and what labor is doing here is seeking to demonstrate that it is speaking for working families generally, union member or non- union member,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
At the “Make Wall Street Pay” rallies, union members will push for a transaction tax on securities trading to help pay for the $900 billion they want the government to spend on creating jobs. That’s 60 times the $15 billion approved by the Senate last month. The House last week passed an $18 billion measure.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he opposes the transaction tax, although Trumka says it has support in the White House. He declined to say who the backers are.
Labor unions have failed to achieve some of their top goals since Democrats, their traditional political allies, took control of the White House and Congress. Their principal legislative priority, the so-called card-check bill making it easier to organize, has stalled, even though President Obama embraced the legislation during his presidential campaign.
Obama also pressed labor leaders to back a tax on expensive health insurance plans, including those that cover some union members, as part of an effort to overhaul health care. The National Labor Relations Board has been dormant for two years as Obama and congressional Democrats failed to get a union ally installed.
By targeting banks, unions are trying to bring energy to a labor movement that has seen its ranks dwindle. Union membership in the private sector declined in 2009 to a record low of 7.2 percent of all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unions represented about 35 percent of the private-sector workers in the mid-1950s, and 17 percent as recently as 1983.
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