Here Come the Unions

View a slideshow of images from the showdown in Chicago here.

On Tuesday morning, in Chicago, the unions came to town. It was the final day of the rolling protest dubbed The Showdown in Chicago, a confrontation with the American Bankers Association, whose members had gathered for their annual meeting. With a crowd estimated at 5,000, it was without a doubt the largest demonstration against Wall Street's ravages since the economy crashed a year ago.

From the desperate manufacturing sector came members of the Sheet Metal Workers and the Machinists and the Steelworkers. From the collapsed housing market came the Carpenters and the Painters and the Insulators. There were laid off workers from shuttered factories – Republic Doors and Windows, whose battle over severance pay was captured in Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, and Quad City Die Casting, whose hundred employees all lost their jobs with far less fanfare last month. Pulling up the rear, a large contingent of garment workers from Hart Marx, suit makers to the president, who successfully fought off a shutdown threatened by creditor Wells Fargo, saving some 3,500 jobs. And, of course, a vast purple army from the Service Employees Union, SEIU.

"There is something wrong with America," Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary treasurer, told the crowd, in the stirring rhetoric that was typical of the day. "Over a year ago the big banks on Wall Street, because of their greed and risky decisions, put our whole country and our whole economy at risk. And what did they do? They came to us. They asked for trillions of dollars and they said they would help us rebuild our economy. Did they rebuild our economy? Did they stop home foreclosures? Did they cut interest rates? Did they lower bank fees? Did they stop layoffs? Did they extend credit to small businesses? Or create new jobs? No. What did they do? They squeezed us harder. They exploited us more, raked in millions in fees, made lots of money and now they're giving themselves bigger bonuses than ever before." The shouting in response to her was boisterous, as it was to equally tough words from AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.

"These are Obama's voters," Rob Johnson, a former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee, had observed to me the day before. "These are African Americans and church people and community organizations. That means he's not standing with the people who elected him."

Few of the labor leaders I spoke with – Trumka, SEIU president Andy Stern – were willing to admit there was any daylight between their positions and Obama's when it came to reining in the banks. "We're on exactly the same page," Trumka told me as we marched toward the Sheraton. "It's the bankers and Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Alliance of Manufacturers, that we're up against." He cited the significant progress in recent weeks in moving a regulatory agenda.

In fact, when you start to catalogue it all, it does start to feel like a corner's been turned. The House Financial Services Committee reporting out a bill to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Another bill approved by that same committee, also in a party line vote, this one to regulate privately traded derivatives. A promise by the Securities Exchange Commission to use its powers to better regulate the shadow economy, through new reporting requirements on the opaque private trading systems known as "dark pools." The anticipated introduction of legislation next week that would give the government the power to dissolve troubled banks that are now considered "too big to fail."

But the obstacles ahead are massive, and they don't come only from the swarm of well-paid lobbyists for the banking and finance industries that have overrun Capitol Hill of late (funded in part by at least $11 million from bailout recipients such as Bank of America, Citigroup, and AIG). "Summers, Geithner, they are Wall Street," Rev. Jesse Jackson, who joined the march, told me. "They just moved south."

It was during Jackson's final closing prayer that the pain underlying the day's tough talk was allowed to show. "Those who lost jobs, bless them," he said, and a woman to my left, eyes closed, echoed him: "Bless them." "Those who've lost their houses," Jackson continued, "bless them. Those who died in need of health care in an emergency room, bless them."

Read Esther's reporting from Day 1 and Day 2 of the Showdown in Chicago.

Comments (33)

1. Oh, when will the Democrats work for the people instead of against them? When will Wall-Street pay be slashed and working people's pay be raised?

   Posted by Kristev at 10/27/2009 @ 6:26pm

2. "There is something wrong with America," Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary treasurer, told the crowd...

   Well, you can say that again.

   News at 11:00...only, don't expect an explanation that makes any sense of it all.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/27/2009 @ 6:31pm

3. By the way, thanks for the coverage Ms> Kaplan.

   In lieu of the Obama admin "getting it" we can only hope that the smarter, more well informed segment of the population becomes the driving force for the necessary and robust reforms of the corporatocracy. If the Obama-ites continue to blindly believe in their messiah, when the political-economic system finally unravels it's the rightwing mouth-foamers who will sieze the scepter of leadership, most likely.

   Here's a portentous bit that emerged recently at several (fairly underground) sites:

   tinyurl.com/yhvg6sy

   Excerpt:

   One of this year's more disturbing stories that were ignored was the illegal Army occupation of Samson, Alab., in March following a spree that raged across two towns by a disgruntled worker, leaving 11 people .

   As I wrote at the time, Michael McLendon, 27, went on a rampage following years of relentless corporate exploitation and harassment against him, his mother (whom he mercy-killed), and the entire rural Alabama region, which suffered like so many parts of rural America at the hands of billionaire goons like chicken oligarch Bo Pilgrim of Pilgrim's Pride notoriety.

   One of the creepiest details to emerge in the rampage were reports that troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets. This is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, every freedom-loving American's worst nightmare.

   End quote.

   This is the kind of story that, in theory, should raise at least a few hackles across the political spectrum. In any case, any reasonably orderly roll back of the emergent --and powerful-- corporate state in America will likely require some intelligent cooperation between the smarter segments of

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/27/2009 @ 6:58pm

4. both ends of the political spectrum --as much as I dislike the much oversimplified "right" versus "left" dichotomy.

   Far from detecting that "when you start to catalogue it all, it does start to feel like a corner's been turned" in some positive Washington DC has begun to wake up sense, I think the only corner we've turned may be more related to an increasing fervor of the popular boiling point.

   However you detect it, the ferment is in the air.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/27/2009 @ 6:59pm

5. Of course! Here they come.....to save the day....and to save those who lost jobs, those who lost homes, those who died. Such useful `work'!

   Posted by Happy at 10/27/2009 @ 7:51pm

6. I love what the unions have done with Detroit.

   Posted by bleedingheart at 10/27/2009 @ 9:05pm

7. "Here Come the Unions"...and there go the jobs.

   Posted by YourJomamma at 10/27/2009 @ 9:45pm

8. When will Wall-Street pay be slashed and working people's pay be raised?

   Posted by Kristev at 10/27/2009 @ 6:26pm

   Thats what you are directed to be upset with...

   Wall Street pay verses some guy working for $7.00 an hour.

   That aint the problem..paycheck envy is a side show.

   Posted by YourJomamma at 10/27/2009 @ 9:48pm

9. hey hey we're the unions, watch us close America down

   we've got a new generation, ready for a marxist name

   Posted by antisocialist at 10/27/2009 @ 10:49pm

10. It's nice to see that there is some kind of collaboration in Washington that benefits us, but corporate personhood has won. Any real change that will protect the American people means that we would have to break the same laws that protect human beings in order to get rid of businesses bribing politicians, an unacceptable option. We have thousands of sociopath self-interest wonks (lobbyists mainly) rampaging through our hallowed halls of government with billions of dollars stealing our country out from under us. All the while doing it while claiming that their company has the same right to access our elected representatives that we do. It is insane. The Supreme Court has been successfully infiltrated by neo-con operatives, there is no way that we will see corporate personhood outlawed in our lifetimes. Due process is a joke now, even to the Democratic Party. If someone can shed a less dismal light on this problem, please do. It should be clear to everyone that labor unions are the closest thing we have to democracy in the U.S. now, and that's what, maybe 18% of the population? DNC support for labor, and by extension the American people has been insufficient. The neo-cons won, representatives won't cut it anymore, we need our own bullies now. Sniveling appeals to these people's sense of morals and ethics are laughed at as pathetic and naive by the audience to which they are directed. Therefore, useless. It's time for our few remaining leaders in government to play hard ball if they really want to avoid the U.S. becoming a Brazil or China with vast shanty towns surrounding filthy cities full of underclasses. Don't think it can happen? It's a pattern that has repeated itself countless times throughout history, are we are jumping head first into it with our eyes closed.

    Posted by Milhaus at 10/27/2009 @ 10:58pm

11. #

    I love what the unions have done with Detroit.

    Posted by bleedingheart at 10/27/2009 @ 9:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    You realize that for the 40+ years leading up to Detroit's destruction was spent in competition with Japan, a country who's entire automotive workforce had guaranteed lifetime employment, medical, and pensions? Detroit went down the tubes because the idiot Ivy league trust fund babies running those companies ignored the market for decades and kept trying to compete against car companies who were targeting global success by building small and utilitarian vehicles that people actually needed. Meanwhile, the idiots in Detroit insisted on shipping LTDs and Hummers for years after it was obvious to everyone else how stupid it was. It was a common topic of conversation for most of my youth. Everyone knew. So I won't even say your comment was a nice try, it was plain wrong.

    Posted by Milhaus at 10/27/2009 @ 11:18pm

12. I love what the unions have done with Detroit.

    Posted by bleedingheart at 10/27/2009 @ 9:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    I think its a toss up between that and what P.C. liberal correctness and unbridled "entitlement" has done for California! Don't forget to turn out the lights as everyone leaves!

    Posted by BigPasture at 10/28/2009 @ 12:43am

13. "You realize that for the 40+ years leading up to Detroit's destruction was spent in competition with Japan, a country who's entire automotive workforce had guaranteed lifetime employment, medical, and pensions?"

    (bingo)

    Posted by darladoon at 10/28/2009 @ 12:56am

14. This is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, every freedom-loving American's worst nightmare.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/27/2009 @ 6:58p

    Absolutely, and as confirmed by the Army Inspector General's report. See dothaneagle.com, 10/19/09.

    Posted by cka2nd at 10/28/2009 @ 06:40am

15. How exactly did "the unions destroy Detroit and/or our manufacturing base"...

    when Detroit was rocking at full speed and we had tons of manufacturing jobs in the 1950s and 1960s....when unions were at their strongest?!??!?!??

    Posted by Mask at 10/28/2009 @ 07:24am

16. The Raygun laser beam of destruction.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 10/28/2009 @ 07:57am

17. That aint the problem..paycheck envy is a side show. Posted by YourJomamma at 10/27/2009 @ 9:48pm |

    It's not about envy...it's about not having a-holes who can't do statistical finance very well having their hands deep into 308M pockets.

    If they're on the trillion-dollar-dole (thanks Comrade Paulson), they have no business whatsoever giving out a single bonus or any pay above say $100k (cash OR securities) until they are paid in full.

    If they don't like it, they can move up the road...I'm sure there are legion MBAs looking for work right now who couldn't do any worse.

    Posted by snowball777 at 10/28/2009 @ 08:21am

18. The Torments of Ronald Reagan in Hell:

    Monday - Alternatively raped, mutilated and murdered by Nicaraguan Contras or doused with acid by Afghan mujahudeen.

    Tuesday - Hung on a spike and slaughtered by meatpackers like the pig he was without receiving the mercy of being knocked out beforehand.

    Wednesday - Cycling through all of the ailments associated with AIDS, ending in dementia and death every time.

    Thursday - Beaten, shot to death or thrown down stairs to his death by a white cops, and then chased and beaten to death by white mobs.

    Friday - Launched into space and shot down by rockets and lasers fired by an actually functioning Missle Defense System.

    Saturday - Run over or thrown out of moving Greyhound buses, tractor trailers and planes from Continental, TWA and Eastern.

    Sunday - He's sitting on a beach, relaxing, when the Marines storm the beach and either: load him into a helicopter, from which he is thrown into the sea, or onto an Iranian or Korean airliner that is shot down by U.S. rockets and Soviet (or Japanese, depending on the theory one believes) fighter jets.

    Posted by cka2nd at 10/28/2009 @ 09:58am

19. detroit gave us the ford taurus.

    epic fail.

    unions are not to blame. the workers didn't design the shitty, unstylish vehicles.

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/28/2009 @ 10:16am

20. Posted by urmygyro at 10/28/2009 @ 10:16am

    The Ford Taurus was a hugely successful car, duking it out with the Honda Accord as highest-selling car in the U.S. for several years running.

    Posted by cka2nd at 10/28/2009 @ 10:37am

21. "You realize that for the 40+ years leading up to Detroit's destruction was spent in competition with Japan, a country who's entire automotive workforce had guaranteed lifetime employment, medical, and pensions? "

    And they worked more than 40 hrs a week, took no vacations, were paid less, than US workers, had no union rules regarding how many nuts to put on bolts a day, workers worked others jobs on the shop floor without union interferrence...

    and the union actualy worked for the betterment of the company and not as an antagonist...

    and still the jobs left Japan for here...anmd set up shop ...here...and make a better designed and assemble car...here...than Detroit....and they dont have legacy costs where the union gets paid for YEARS OF NOT WORKING......

    and yes, MASK,the 50s and 60s were the height of union "success" jobs....for which we are still paying the price...even as the unions killed off GM, as much as the idiots who were designing the cars and running the admin offices.

    Posted by YourJomamma at 10/28/2009 @ 12:42pm

22. A WSJ article today:

    "Opposition Builds to Ford Union Concessions - Workers at Five Plants Have Rejected Givebacks the Car Maker Needs to Reach Parity with GM, Chrysler", page B3, shows just how `useful' the auto unions are.

    We all know that GM & Chrysler are effectively non-profit enterprises today w/most/all pre-bankruptcy obligations wiped out or assumed by the Gubbers.

    Unions' next target? Ford, and to force it into the arms of the Gubbers.....by driving it into bankruptcy! Then, their jobs, pensions, health care, will be secure, the Magic way.

    Unions.......here they come..........to kill off Ford!

    Posted by Happy at 10/28/2009 @ 5:13pm

23. #

    detroit gave us the ford taurus.

    epic fail.

    unions are not to blame. the workers didn't design the shitty, unstylish vehicles.

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/28/2009 @ 10:16am | ignore this person | warn this person

    Ford bought the design from Saab who abandoned the concept. Aside from that, if was so terrible why is the world swarming with them. It was a good mid-sized sedan in an American car line-up full of huge trashy luxury cars.

    Posted by Milhaus at 10/28/2009 @ 5:51pm

24. It was a good mid-sized sedan in an American car line-up full of huge trashy luxury cars.

    Posted by Milhaus at 10/28/2009 @ 5:51pm

    It was! We had one and it was a great, roomy, family sedan,......until about 50k miles when the warranty ran out........paint started to fade badly and the A/C became problematic.......we unloaded it & bought our first SUV!

    Posted by Happy at 10/28/2009 @ 6:05pm

25. This gathering was just another lovefest of loony losers. Too bad, that, but until these no-count losers stop praying to deities that either do not exist or do not give a rat flip in hell and start preying on the flesh and wallets of others like the winners do, they will remain nothing more than losers.

    Yes, the Taurus was OK in its day, but I bought Mazdas and Jeeps. The Taurus might have stayed at the party too long, though. Plenty of blame to go around in Detroit, so now we have Government Motors and Christloser Motors, division of Wop Works, and Ford, who got lucky with an advance loan. It will get worse in a few years. The Bay Area will be next in 20-40 years. The Chinese will eat their lunch.

    And, no, I don't know what the answer is. Should we raise the tariff drawbridge? Should we just reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are no longer worth what we once were in a far more primitive world?

    Posted by malrox at 10/28/2009 @ 7:26pm

26. I dont have a problem with my choices out there I buy BMWs..German cars made in S Carolina....and no union to screw up the process.

    Posted by YourJomamma at 10/28/2009 @ 8:16pm

27. "even as the unions killed off GM, as much as the idiots who were designing the cars and running the admin offices"

    wow, jomamma added a HUGE qualifying statement to that first fragment ("as much as the idiots....").

    key words being: "as much as"

    so jomamma has upgraded his initial argument, that unions "killed off GM" to a new argument, "as much as the" designers and administration.

    quite an upgrade there!

    Posted by darladoon at 10/28/2009 @ 9:18pm

28. Posted by darladoon at 10/28/2009 @ 9:18pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    I have been saying this for years. You missed it. What a surprise.

    Here us another truth......GM should have gone belly up. Instead the socialists gave the stock holders, bond holders ans investors the finger as they rewarded the unions and the management with tax payer money without changing the cause of the problem.

    Now the unions are fucking with Ford for their sweat heart pay back for the election just as they got from the govt(GM)

    And guess what? GM is back for more money!!! What a surprise!!!! The tax payer is fucked again!!!!

    And what are the lefty loons focusing on? Wall Street execs pay!!! Chump change compared to the stealing the unions and auto makers are pulling off!

    Yikes

    Mean time Japanese andGermsncars are selling sndeithout unions. Wow

    Posted by YourJomamma at 10/28/2009 @ 10:35pm

29. "Wall Street execs pay!!! Chump change compared to the stealing the unions and auto makers are pulling off!"

    (quote of the millenneum)

    as if we're only complaining about "executive pay," as opposed to the sheer, breathtaking volume of, say, the DERIVATIVES market.

    jomamma is the perfect embodiment of someone in possession of sound financial sense (i.e. he knows how to make money, apparently), but when it comes to, you know, actual academic abilities (i.e. a grasp of history, grammar, the arts, critical thinking, etc), he has almost no knowledge.

    and that seveley impairs his ability to infuse more than just economics into his arguments.

    and besides, he really, really needs to get laid.

    Posted by darladoon at 10/28/2009 @ 11:05pm

30. Posted by YourJomamma at 10/28/2009 @ 12:42pm

    Didn't answer the question, John.

    How is it at the HEIGHT of union membership...we had the strongest manufacturing base, i.e. the 50s and 60s?

    Posted by Mask at 10/29/2009 @ 07:15am

31. A better question,Mask, is why are unions evaporating with in the biggest economic expansion in the US after that point?

    I believe the answer is that all industrys were doing well and unions were not the majority, so it doesn't corrolate. People who want to earn more by production will never join a union...people who want to be paid for showing up longer than the guy next to him for his measure of worth, are made for unions, but never will become economic necessitys in any industry....maybe thats why unions thrive in govt...one can train chimps to do the same work, or the same work could be done on a post card and or emailed in...(DMV)

    The real function of unions today is to vote democrat. It is a pay off system.

    We produce more goods and services in the 80s or 90s and union membership collapsed.

    Unions are a relict of the 30s.

    And we are still paying the legacy costs of those union contracts. This should be the glowing evidence that unions are not good for the future of any business...we pay guys to not produce. I can tell you that I was in a union and they demanded I not "work so much"...

    Pathetic.

    Explain to me why govt workers need a union?

    Posted by YourJomamma at 10/29/2009 @ 08:05am

32. "How is it at the HEIGHT of union membership...we had the strongest manufacturing base, i.e. the 50s and 60s?"

    answering that would force maasch to admit his premise is.......wrong.

    Posted by darladoon at 10/29/2009 @ 11:46am

33. I agree... do we really need unions at all?

    Besides creating the middle class, what good have they done? Although the US middle class demographic has historically supplied the soldiers, paid the nation's bills, contructed our buildings and roadways, etc. they have gotten way too greedy these last 30 years. They should take their cue from the philanthropists at the Wall Street investment banks and their employee politicians, who care only about the well-being of the country as a whole.

    It's time we went back to the good old pre-union days when we had children working in coal mines 14 hours a day. Hell, Wal-Mart's suppliers are pulling something similar off in Asia right now - why not here? If we hope to compete globally we need to get these little slackers off their cans, sitting around in school all day producing nothing. If we can only get the unions out of the way, it'll be smooth sailing for corporate America and we'll all reap the rewards of their success! Even more so than we are now!

    Posted by lumenpro at 10/29/2009 @ 12:04pm