PEOPLES MOVEMENT

Labor-Community Coalition activists march down Wall Street during a protest against budget cuts and bank practices in New York, May 12, 2011.   (Photo Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

At the end of each week, Working In These Times rounds up labor news we’ve missed during the past week, with a focus on new and ongoing campaigns and protests. For all our other headlines from this week, go here.

—On Thursday, 15,000 protesters from eight separate marches converged on Wall Street to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Corporate profits are skyrocketing while public budgets are stretched to the breaking point. One of the catalysts for the protest was Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s budget plan, which would lay off over 4000 teachers. The demonstrators urged New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reinstate a millionaire’s tax worth $4.6 billion a year.

—Activists in San Francisco kicked off a city-wide campaign against wage theft on Thursday. Wage theft is a $30 billion problem nationwide, and especially pervasive in the hospitality and construction industries. The San Francisco Board of Supervisers is considering legislation to help prevent wage theft in the city.

—For many students, summer jobs are a source of income and work experience. However, the poorest students have the hardest time finding summer jobs and racial disparities are rampant, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. In 2009, only 20 percent of low-income African Americans aged 16-19 and not enrolled in school were employed, compared to 31 percent of poor Hispanic teens and 36 percent of poor white teens. Among middle-class teens of the same age, employment rates were 55 percent for whites, 56 percent for Hispanics, and 40 percent for African Americans.

—National Nurses United celebrated the 191st anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the founder of the modern profession of nursing. During the Crimean War, Nightengale led the first recorded nurses strike, refusing to allow her nurses to disembark from a ship until the hospitals were in working order. Nigthingale also made original contributions to epidemiological statistics.

As thousands of protesters marched through Downtown Manhattan yesterday, I had a difficult task – explain why Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was such a threat to GED students in New York City.  The connection was not so straightforward, but May 12th was a day in which the parts of the City that normally operate in isolation were brought into comparison and conflict with each other.  The more than 10,000 protesters made sure this was literally the case as bankers were forced to squeeze past housing rights activists and Wall Street “power-couples” shot disturbed glances at homeless rights advocates.  It was a day for all the contradictions in our City to come face-to-face with one another.

I was positioned in Teach-in Zone 2, right on the edge of Pine and Water Street.  My topic was education, but my approach was not typical of other education teachers.  Most would discuss the high-profile cuts – big number layoffs for teachers and the next in the seemingly never ending gutting of the public higher education system.  My focus was to look at smaller budget cuts.  Though small, these cuts threaten to devastate critical support programs, further dislocating poor and working class New Yorkers.

My lead in was John Stumpf.  He’s a dapper man who prefers dark suits that contrast with his gently graying hair.  And Stumpf has a problem, a really serious one.  One that I presented to the students at my open-air teach-in.  How can you spend $8,500 an hour?  That’s how much he received in compensation from Wells Fargo bank last year.  The crowd shouted out all the typical working class fantasies – go on a long vacation, buy twenty pairs of jeans, pay off my student loans…  Yet, none of these captured Stumpf’s dilemma.  He simply cannot spend $8,500 an hour.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  There is a plan for Stumpf and his fellow CEO’s.  First, the cuts.

The education budget is clearly a target for Bloomberg.  And with education we know which way the human feces rolls.  The Federal Government has ended important funding streams to New York City’s education system.  Simultaneously, budget-cutting New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has also withdrawn funding from the system.  And Mayor Michael Bloomberg has gone right along with them by proposing to cut $461 million from the system.

A good chunk of that comes from the previously mentioned teacher layoffs.  These firings will send class sizes soaring – from today’s average of 21 students per class to 24 students after the cuts.  Yet, the problem with education is about more than layoffs or class sizes.  Bloomberg’s coveted charter schools are literally bleeding the public education system dry.  In 2007, the charters and other private institutions received $1.1 billion in funding from the Department of Education.  That number will climb to $2.6 billion by 2012.  The NYC Independent Budget Office reports that, “growth in payments to nonpublic and charter schools over the two years [2010-2012] will outstrip the total growth of the DOE’s budget.”

All of these funds could be directed back into the public education system with the aim toward reducing class size and creating an education system based on learning instead of testing.  But my question for the day was what happens to students, particularly youth, who become dislocated from this education system.

Bloomberg has a plan for them.  It involves more cuts.  There are currently 126 community-based programs that offer GED, English for Speakers of Other Languages and other Adult Literacy Courses.  These programs rely on funding from the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD).  Last year, the funds in this line amounted to around $5 million.  Bloomberg is proposing to cut this budget in half to $2.5 million.  I work at one of these programs.  Budgets are already really tight.  Many programs will not survive these cuts leaving thousands of students outside of both the traditional and non-traditional education system.  Just think, it would only take about 13 days of Stumpf style compensation to fund these programs.

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Students in these non-traditional education programs need more than just an education.  They also need jobs.  However, given the current rate of youth unemployment and long-term patterns of discrimination a job may be hard to come by in the private sector.  A recent study by the Community Service Society reported that a shocking 3 out of 4 African-American males age 16 to 24 are unemployed.  Programs funded through the DYCD are therefore a crucial outlet for employment.  These too are slated for cuts, to the tune of $3.2 million.  Such cuts may jeopardize the City’s ability to receive Federal funding.  If the cuts go through and the same numbers of youth apply for jobs, they will have only a 1 in 12 chance of receiving one.

This all leads to our Stumpf problem.  While Bloomberg has become stingy with people looking for an education and with youth looking for a job, the fiscal floodgates have been opened to banks like Wells Fargo.  Over the past fifteen years, Wells Fargo has received more than $122 million in tax exemptions and subsidies from the City of New York.  If New York had actually collected these funds we could have funded ten years of adult education services or created thousands of more slots for youth employment.

Things get even worse at the Federal level.  While most of us contribute upwards of 30% of our income to taxes, big banks like Wells Fargo don’t.  They may have the legal status of a person, but they don’t pay taxes like one.  Last year they paid the equivalent of a 10.4% tax rate, well below the 35% standard Federal tax rate.  As if this wasn’t enough they also dipped into Bank Bailout funds – grabbing some $43.7 billion in public funds.  All this resulted in $3.8 billion in profits last year, or $42 million in profits per day.

Stumpf loved all this.  His personal compensation soared to $17.6 million, a figure that accounted for the $8,500 an hour problem he faces.  He now makes 796 times what an average bank teller at Wells Fargo brings home every year.  And his $17 million dwarves the budgets of most GED programs and could be used to improve the lives of thousands of youth in the City.

May 12th was a day to declare that the time when Wall Street and the Banks dominate our City without resistance has come to an end.  We ended my teach-in with the chant – Wells Fargo! Pay your taxes!  This was less a polite request and more of a demand that if their taxes were not paid, the next protest would escalate beyond just a teach-in.  You see there are many ways to resolve a Stumpf problem – some include teaching, others more direct forms of action.

Contact:  Dan Levitan (646) 200-5315, Eric Koch (646) 200-5309, Peter Kadushin (UFT) (212) 510-6463

OVER 10,000 TO MARCH ON WALL STREET TO MAKE THE BANKS PAY

Unprecedented Labor-Community Coalition Calls on Mayor Bloomberg to Close Loopholes and Renegotiate Bad Deals that Cost City Taxpayers Billions

More than 10,000 people will flood the Wall Street area on Thursday to call on Mayor Bloomberg to close the loopholes and stop the destructive bank practices that destroy our communities and cost taxpayers billions instead of enacting layoffs and budget cuts that hurt working families and low-income New Yorkers. 

The afternoon of events will kick-off at 4:00pm at eight assembly sites, each themed around budget and issues areas at risk from Mayor Bloomberg’s cuts and bad bank practices.  

4:00 PM ASSEMBLY SITES:

(1) Education	City Hall*	260 Broadway
(2) Students	Charging Bull	26 Broadway
(3) Transportation/Energy	Bowling Green	1Bowling Green
(4) Immigration	Battery Park	Battery Place and State Street
(5) Housing	Staten Island Ferry	1 State Street
(6) Peace	Vietnam Veterans Memorial	55 Water Street
(7) Jobs	Wall Street Fountain	110 Wall St
(8) Human Services / Safety Net	South St. Seaport	20 Fulton St

* Note: Liu, De Blasio, and the Rev. Sharpton will join UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the City Hall Assembly site.

At 4:30pm, demonstrators will begin marches from assembly sites to the intersection of Water Street and Wall Street, where they will participate in over 100 street teach-ins to educate the public on the bad deals, loopholes and sweetheart deals for Wall Street that cost New York City billions.

• Example:  City officials gave over $100 million in subsidies to JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley to save or create over 17,000 jobs – and they didn’t.  Bloomberg must demand accountability and get back unearned subsidies to prevent budget cuts.

 

Also, at 4:30pm, Comptroller John Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and the Rev. Al Sharpton will join UFT President Michael Mulgrew at a City Hall teach-in on education cuts.  At 5:00pm the group will march from City Hall down Broadway through the Wall Street area to join the teach-ins at Water Street and Wall Street. 

At 5:30pm all participants will join at Water Street and Wall Street and march down to Battery Park for an energetic closing session.

 

What:  May 12 Day of Action to Save Our City’s Budget and Make the Banks Pay

Who:  More than 10,000 demonstrators from the May 12 Coalition, joined by Liu, De Blasio, and the Rev. Sharpton

Where and When:   

4:00PM – Mobilization begins at 8 Assembly sites including City Hall

4:30 PM – Demonstrators in Financial District begin March to Water St. and Wall St. Convergence Point

5:00 PM — Liu, De Blasio, and the Rev. Sharpton join UFT President Michael Mulgrew on march from City Hall down Broadway, through the Wall Street area to Water Street and Wall Street

5:00PM – Over 100 of street teach-ins begin at Water St. and Wall St.

5:30PM – All groups join at Water and Wall, March continues to Battery Park

 

By a vote of 237-192, the House of Representatives this afternoon voted to pass final legislation dramatically changing the rules that govern the financial industry. Nineteen Democrats joined 173 Republicans in opposing the legislation, which, in addition to limiting the risky practices that lead to the 2008 collapse, will create a new federal agency dedicated to protecting consumers from predatory financial products, and bring to a close the Troubled Asset Relief Plan — the bailout program created by the Congress in the midst of the financial crisis. Three Republicans voted for the bill, and four members (two Democrats, two Republicans) did not vote.

The Senate is set to take up identical legislation shortly after they return from next week’s Independence Day recess. Democrats had hoped to send the Wall Street reform bill to President Obama by weeks end, but last minute hiccups in the Senate — objections of key Republicans and the death of Robert Byrd — ultimately made that impossible.

There’s still a nightmare scenario for Democrats: An unforeseen reneging by one of the three Republicans who helped shape the final compromise on the legislation could leave them a vote shy. And at this point, they have few if any means of changing the legislation.

But the Democratic authors of the legislation — House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd — have both implied that the deal is done.

Frank told reporters last night that the House would not proceed to the bill, as they did today, unless they’d received the proper assurances from the Senate that the legislation would certainly pass.

We’ll see if he’s right in two weeks.