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Turning Occupy Anger Into Local Change
Chicago groups push specfic anti-austerity demands during week of protests
The Occupy Together movement has been criticized for not having focused demands. Some unions, however, are trying to use the momentum and energy of Occupy Wall Street (and myriad other protests that have followed its lead) to make very specific policy demands to local governments trying to enact budget cuts and extract concession from workers.
(Photo from TakeBackChicago.org) On Wednesday, members of Occupy Chicago and Take Back Chicago, a coalition of labor and community groups, marched to Bank of America's headquarters in the city to demand an end to interest-rate swap deals between the Chicago Public School system and several of the nation’s largest banks, which activists say have lost the school system more than $100 million in recent years.
While activists were storming the Bank of America location, other activists in Chciago were protesting the diversion of revenue from schools and other projects through a program called Tax Increment Financing (TIF). The TIF fund is split between private development projects and public projects.
CTU has been trying to bring attention to the interest-rate swap and TIF issue for months. This week's protests are an example of how labor groups are trying to push specific goals under the umbrella of a national movement.
A quick interest-rate swap primer: When local governments or school boards issue bonds, they do so with a variable interest-rate swap. A variable interest rate can go up or down depending on the interest rate set by the Federal Reserve, which can be tricky for governments trying to do long-term planning, so they swap interest rates with a big bank in order to get a fixed rate (see Working In These Times coverage back in May of the launch of the Chicago Teachers Union campaign back in May).
Now, even though the Federal Reserve has slashed interest rates close to zero to spur economic growth, the CPS is still paying the equivalent of a 3.66 percent interest rate to the banks. The union claims the interest rate swaps cost the Chicago Public School System $35.9 million in the last year and that the deals with the banks have produced a $120.7 million net loss for the school system since 2003.
Activists claim that TIF development money is often used to persuade big profitable companies like United Airlines, which has received nearly $31 million in TIF money, and Millers-Coors, which has received $6 million in TIF money, to merely move corporate headquarters from the suburbs to downtown Chicago.
“Taking taxpayer money to subsidize expenses they should be covering themselves is not responsible. It’s about making corporations more responsible," says Eric Tellez, an organizer/researcher with the Grassroots Collaborative, a labor and community coalition.
Activists are hoping to draw attention to the TIF funds as a source of revenue that could be used to prevent budget cuts and to tap the unspent TIF funds to stop budget cuts and layoffs. One analysis by the Chicago News Cooperative shows that at the end of 2010, there were $868 million in unspent TIF funds still in the account—and this number was suppose to grow. Yet, say activists, under Mayor Emanuel’s proposal, Chicago Public Schools will only get $30 million in funding from the TIF funds.
“Why did the City Council decide to give United Airlines, one of the most profitable corporations in the world, $30 million of our tax dollars in TIF funds? “said Beverly King, a laid-off Special Ed Classroom Assistant and member of SEIU Local 73 “If the city sticks to declaring only a $60 million dollar surplus, that means only $30 million will go back to the Chicago Public Schools. So 600 schools get the same amount as a corporation that made $854 million [in profits] in 2010 alone?”
As opposed to merely saying "no" to budget cuts and public employees concessions, some unions are getting specific—and hoping to use the energy of the flourishing Occupy Together movement in their fight against austerities.
“Here we have a local example of how this national messaging of Occupy Wall Street breaks down and how we can get out in public and show who is really struggling” says Tellez.
As the Occupy movement grows, its ability to win real change for workers will be determined not just by its ability to change the political debate at the national level, but by its ability to funnel energy into fights at the local level.
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12 Comments so far
Show AllDid Obama appoint CPS CEO Arne Duncan to the Secretary of Education post to spread this TIF corporate welfare program nationwide ?
This scheme will help Obama amass a corporate funded 2012 campiagn war chest.
Have you noticed how the so-called "progressive" press is helping to spread the meme that the OWS is "unfocused" and they are just saying "no" without any specific demands or purpose? Just like FOX and radical right politicians/pundits. It is a good thing though, I suppose, that other protests are springing up, focused or not.
These 'terrible unfocused grouped" people, how can they "ever" have a movement? Vie Dey don't eben do as dey are told! Someone "could get hurt." Hey, Sherlock, somebody already has got hurt-- surprise by what Adlai Stevenson III once called the "fascists in blue" back in the 1968 Chicago police riot.
State governments need their own State Bank.
"State governments need their own State Bank."
.........No question about it, Ocean. ........State-owned banks are the only way out of "debt peonage".
TIF is just another private funding venue from public money. We have seen plenty of these from both Bush and Obama. The chickens are coming home to roost on these dastardly operations.
The idea of Union's pushing their specific demands under the umbrella of "Occupy" may not be the best idea in the world. Unless the protest is the end it's self you seek, the purpose is to convince others you are right and have them join you and lend their voices to yours. If they decide this is just about Unions or vested interests, it's over. Like it or not.
The Unions - late to the party. Shouldn't they have been leading the protests from the get-go? And now we're supposed to let them usurp the movement? Yeah, sure...
The charge if the movement being unfocused is a misnomer. Since the movement is decentralized, it takes time for participants to discuss and to settle on a course of action. That process is underway now. I might suggest a focused action that would make a difference. DO NOT PURCHASE ANY PRODUCT ADVERTISED ON CORPORATE NEWS PROGRAMS. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, all promote the corporate agenda. Stop buying the cars, medicines, financial products and others that advertise. Now that the Nation's attention is focused on Occupy Wall Street, why not take on the media? Isn't that focused enough?
As a progressive involved in economic development in a small city, Tax Increment Financing can be a useful tool to redevelopment, The details are in how the TIF is structured. TIF's can be structured to keep the schools "whole" in the TIF structure, "Whole" meaning the financing is set up where schools continue to collect their share of the taxes with the developer picking up the difference. It is all about how the TIF is arranged. The developer must contibute to the schools by either a contribution to the schools, which can be at 100% of what they would lose if the TIF was not to occur. The schools must agree to take less money if they so choose or some form of compensation from the developer or business(es) locating in the TIF District.
TIF's can be good to redevelop aging inner cities or creating commercial/industrial areas for futur growth (and income) to a public entity (a city, as an example.
Too often, TIF's are structured where the schools are not made whole. Generally, schools take a hit with the hopes that the new development will increase future funding for the schools when in fact the way schools are funded in Ohio, as an example, the more you bring in thta goes to the State and never makes it back into th elocal school district.
It can be a little complicated, but when the deals are put together the local community usually buckles to big business and corporate greed who want the whole kit and kaboodle and damn the local school system. As stated, there are ways that TIF's can be a valuable economic development tool if all parties realize that the intent is to not hurt the schools or the local community (local community gives up their share that goes into the development project and decreases normal use of those funds for roads, police and fire protection, parks, etc.
TIF's are not inherently bad. It all depends on how it is structurered.
I might add, that with the American Airlines deal in Chicago, what are the chances of the relocated or new workers at AA who will actually live in Chicago proper and its city school school district? Probably very few workers who will migrate to the Chicago suburbs - creating another net loss for the school district in the number of school children as well as those workers purchasing homes in the city, thus more school tax dollars flowing outside the city. Often, municipal governments jump into these TIF deals without analyzing the long term deficiencies. Why? Because politicians think in term from one election to the next. They will use the landing of a company like AA to tout how they brought jobs (and prestige) into the city and bury any of the negatives resulting from their short term (campaign to campaign) thinking.
If two heads are better than one, how much better than a few bought politicians making all the decisions is millions of free people making all the decisions in a Global Online Democracy (G.O.D.)?
American Airlines had put options on it on 9/11. What part did they play?
PLEASE VOTE HERE TO INCLUDE RE-INVESTIGATE 9/11 AS AN OFFICIAL OCCUPY WALL STREET DEMAND. It has made the official
choice list due to popular demand! SPREAD TO TRUTH COMMUNITY!
http://coupmedia.org/the-sovereign-peoples-movement/6-re-investigate-the-attacks-of-9-11-2001.html