From Ron Williams, Executive Director, Oregon Action
Alliance for a Just Society affiliate Oregon Action testified in front of the Portland City Council on May 9th in support of a local ordinance that would divest money out of Wells Fargo and into local community banks and credit unions. Continue reading
The interest rate on subsidized Stafford Loans is set to double. If Congress doesn’t sort out its differences, seven million Americans will see their student loan rates double, creating further drag on the economy. Continue reading
Student loan interest rates have taken center stage in the latest partisan political debate. In response to the economic crisis, the federal government reduced the interest rate for Stafford Loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. But that was only temporary. Continue reading
The next step in our campaign to take on the big banks pay and win relief for homeowners is to disrupt business as usual at shareholder meetings across the country. The goal of these actions is to build off the fall mobilizations and the Occupations to keep up the street heat holding the 1% and bank executives accountable – in this case, accountable for the continued foreclosure on families across the country.
The Alliance played a leadership role in this action to shut down business as usual at Wells Fargo’s annual shareholder meeting on April 24.
The setup started in the weeks leading up to the meeting, when groups created a drumbeat with local actions. For example, Washington CAN and Colorado Progressive Coalition mobilized freshly trained activists out of the 99% spring trainings to confront Wells for paying zero federal taxes despite making record profits. Washington CAN foreclosed on the downtown Seattle headquarters, auctioning off all of Wells’ prized possessions, including their lobbyist, while singing a new version of this Land is Your Land. Meanwhile, Colorado Progressive Coalition joined with partners to deliver an overdue tax bill to their local Denver branch.
In preparation for the trip from New York to San Francisco Leni Juca, a small business leader from Make the Road NY, authored an op-ed published in the Nation demanding that Wells Fargo dump its stock in the private prison industry that is destroying immigrant communities.
Washington CAN, Idaho Community Action Network, and Make the Road NY sent leaders to San Francisco holding proxies to disrupt the circus. Each year, Wells Fargo executives take an annual ceremonious walk from their world headquarters across the street to the Mercantile Exchange, to the shareholders meeting. This year, the presence of 1,500 protesters stopped this self-congratulatory dog and pony show, which typically exhibits fancy suited businessmen patting each other on the back for another year of record profits.
Leni Juca (MRNY) & Diana Corcorran (ICAN) were selected to link arms with brothers and sisters from across the country to lead the crowd of 1,500 through the streets of San Francisco to the Mercantile Exchange Building.
AJS leaders stepped up to lead two affinity groups, one highlighting Wells’ investment in the payday lending industry and the other focused on Wells investment in the private prison industry. These groups of proxy holders were poised to raise issues inside the shareholders meeting.
All of AJS staff and leaders and another 200 protesters held proxy shares and were ready to attend the shareholder meeting and raise our demands from the inside. Not surprisingly, Wells CEO John Stumpf and his board of directors hid behind the SF police, who barricaded every entrance to the building. Wells played a cat-and-mouse game, shuffling shareholders from entrance to entrance – in the end, denying them their legal right to participate. Despite these tactic, 25 of our allies managed to make it upstairs and shut down the meeting.
AJS staff and leaders ended the day excited to kick off the season of shareholder meetings confronting corporate power raising issues including: CEO compensation, corporate money in the coming elections, investments in the prison industrial complex, fair mortgages and principal write-down. This action set a high standard for a season of our communities confronting corporate power.
Press coverage was strong across the country. AJS leaders convened after the activities and penned letters to the editor.
Press clips:
KTAR: http://ktar.com/509/1522967/SF-police-monitor-Wells-Fargo-shareholder-meeting
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-wellsfargo-protests-idUSBRE83N10K20120424
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-the-shareholder-meetings/2012/04/24/gIQA8e8reT_blog.html
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/24/470342/general-electric-tax-protest/
Mother Jones: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/04/wells-fargo-turns-away-its-own-shareholders-annual-meeting
Alliance for a Just Society bank teams in Washington, Texas, Colorado and Idaho had a busy week, making headlines with everything from birdogging presidential candidates to passing city ordinances.
Romney Action in Seattle – Washington CAN and Working WA teamed up to greet a fundraiser for Mitt Romney in Bellevue yesterday. Protestors mocked the $2500 photo op fundraiser by taking pictures with a life-sized cut-out of Romney and chanting “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE “ and “HEY YOU MILLIONAIRES, PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE.” Mila Dolan, a Washington CAN leader, gave perhaps the best quote of the day to the press: “We can’t keep carrying the rich. They are too much of a burden.”
Photos from the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/workingwa/sets/72157629496275507/
And more press:
Seattle PI: Seattle Protesters Mock Romney Guests
KING 5: Protesters Meet Romney at Bellevue Fundraiser
Occupy Austin - The Alliance for a Just Society and the New Bottom Line have been working with bank action teams in Austin, Texas, and have moved nearly $1.5 million in personal accounts from Too Big to Fail banks to local community banks and credit unions. Last week, the Austin City Council passed a unanimous responsible banking ordinance that directs the finance department to research alternatives to the city’s current banker, Bank of America.
Read more about the ordinance here:
Austin YNN: City council votes to explore banking alternatives for city funds
KUT News: With Occupy-Inspired Item, city may shift banking to credit unions, local banks
Colorado Foreclosure Work: The chain of title legislation that AJS affiliate Colorado Progressive Coalition (CPC) introduced this year received the endorsement of a local tea party organization, and is swiftly moving through the house. CPC is mobilizing to move large numbers of homeowners to the capitol this week for grassroots lobbying and testifying at multiple hearings for the whole foreclosure legislation package. To learn more about how to help, visit CPC’s website here: http://progressivecoalition.org/
Idaho Payday Lending Hearing – An informational hearing happened this week on the rate cap legislation introduced in the Idaho legislature this year. Idaho Community Action Network leaders packed an informational legislative hearing last week about rate cap legislation. The bill is currently being blocked, but with the big turnout in support of the legislation, ICAN was able to identify targets and move into next year’s session in a position of strength. Tp learn more about this work, visit Alliance affiliate IdahoCAN’s website here: http://idahocan.org/
Thanks to ICAN Intern Emma Ayers for this report.
February 14th this year, members of Alliance affiliate Idaho Community Action Network (ICAN) had some very specific valentines to deliver to payday lending stores across the valley. These over-sized valentines with broken hearts of pink and red symbolized a message and a demand: stop breaking our hearts and stop breaking our budgets. Continue reading
How about we try a tax idea that curbs unproductive speculation on Wall Street and raises money to pay for the governmental services?
That is exactly what the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) does. It is a very tiny tax on the sale of stocks and other investment instruments.
Some version of the FTT has been endorsed by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, John Bogle (founder of the Vanguard Group), the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Pope. Even Bob Dole and President Bush the Elder endorsed such a tax after the crash of 1987.
So who’s not with the Pope on this one? Continue reading
A new nationwide poll of small business owners’ views on taxes includes some findings that turn K Street lobbyists’ anti-tax talking points on their head. In particular, the poll found that small business owners are up in arms about corporate tax loopholes, offshore tax havens, and corporations and millionaires who don’t pay their fair share.
The nationwide scientific survey of 500 small business owners was commissioned by the Main Street Alliance, Small Business Majority, and the American Sustainable Business Council. Continue reading
Alliance for a Just Society affiliate The Montana Organizing Project (MOP) is a collaboration of diverse community, civic, labor, faith groups, and community members. Located in Missoula and Billings, MOP works on economic, racial and social justice issues, with the mission of promoting the dignity and empowerment of people with low and middle incomes who voices haven’t been heard in their communities. Led by Project Director Molly Moody and Eastern Montana organizer Sheena Rice, MOP is a statewide organization that primarilyrepresents Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Butte, rural Eastern MT towns- Baker, Glendive, including communities on the frontier, Havre and Great Falls. Continue reading
From our affiliate Idaho Community Action Network:
On Monday, Jan. 16 2012, during a protest on EZ MoneyPayday Loans at EZCORP 2911 W. State Street in Boise, members of the Idaho Community Action Network released a report titled “Predatory Lenders Trap Idahoan’s in a Cycle of Debt.”
According to the report, Idaho families are: “increasingly struggling to make ends meet. Affordable small scale loans, which could tide families over, are hard or impossible to come by. Finding no alternative, families are turning to “payday” and title loans that come with high interest rates and often wind up trapping them in a cycle of debt.”
To read more about the report, please visit ICAN’s website: http://idahocan.org/661/idaho%E2%80%99s-payday-lending-industry-report/
