BuzzFlash
After a week of lawmakers obsessing over a massive auto industry bailout, a Chicago company that makes things Americans actually want to buy tried to quietly go out of business, telling their employees they could forget their insurance and vacation pay. Refusing to let the company walk out on their union contract, workers took a stand, and sat down.
At the heart of their demands is basic workers' rights. The company has said it will not pay for benefits, such as insurance and paid vacation, owed under a union contract with United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110. Federal law also requires the company give workers at least 60 days notice prior to the shutdown. The company claims they cannot pay the benefits because Bank of America will not release the necessary funds (my em).
Senator Durbin:
"Over the last several weeks we have been debating in Washington how to spend hundreds of billions of dollars. We have been sending billions of dollars to banks like Bank of America. The reason we sent them the money was to tell them they have to loan this money to companies just like Republic," he said. He added that Congress will "remind them that the taxpayers' dollars flowing into these big banks are not for dividends; they're not for executive salaries. They're for loans and credit to businesses."
Bank of America has secured $15 billion of the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. In acquiring Merrill Lynch, they stand to get $10 billion more from the same program. Meanwhile, Bank of America's CEO Kenneth Lewis received more than $16 million in compensation in 2007 and more than $25 million in 2006. Just last month, Bank of America almost doubled its investment in China Construction Bank, spending an additional $7 billion to increase its share in the Chinese financial institution to more than 19 percent.
From Obama's Sunday news conference:
[...] But it’s also important for us to make sure that the plans and programs that we design aren’t just targeted at maintaining the solvency of banks, but they are designed to get money out the doors and to help people on Main Street. [...]
“Number two, I think it is important for us to make sure that, moving forward, any economic plan we put in place helps businesses to meet payroll so we are not seeing these kinds of circumstances again," he said. “Have we done everything that we can to make sure credit is flowing to businesses and to families, and to students who are trying to get loans? And to homeowners who have been making payments on their homes but are still finding their property values so depressed that it becomes very difficult for them to make the mortgage payments?
“That’s where the rubber hits the road and that’s going to be the central focus of my administration.”
We - that's we, you and me, all of us, have just given BofA billions of our dollars. I guess it's more important for them to sit on the dough or use it for investment in China and for perks, executive salaries, bonuses, dividends, or spa getaways than it is to use it right here in the United States to satisfy obligations to peasants as well to keep businesses open and Americans working. God damn them.
Note to President Obama: You get someone on this shit and look into just what the fuck the money was for and do something about abuses toute de fuckin' suite. Give the op order in yer goddam inaugural speech. Rethink the whole pocket-pickin' giveaway. Better, think about it for the first time unlike Paulson and Congress who panicked and never did. This is total bullshit.
Note to the Republic employees: Good for you. Keep it up. Don't let the bastards beat you out of what's yours.
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