Showdown on Wall Street and K Street

The shake-out of the American economy has left a
handful of
large banks at the pinnacle of the American corporate
power structure. Next week, a coalition of major community
organizations, unions, and religious groups will launch a campaign to
challenge
the economic and political influence of these mega-banks, beginning with
a
series of protests in San Francisco, Kansas City, Charlotte, Chicago,
New York,
and Washington, D.C.

As a growing number of banks have collapsed and been gobbled up by
larger
institutions, the four biggest commercial banks - the Bank of America,
Wells
Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup - now control about 40% of the
nation's
$8 trillion in bank deposits. The two largest investment banks - Goldman
Sachs
and Morgan Stanley - hold one-third of the securities industry's $4.4
trillion
in assets.

"We want to use this moment and the rage that the American people have
at
banks as a way to get into the bigger issues of how Wall Street banks
and
corporate power have sabotaged the economy and enriched themselves,"
explained Stephen Lerner, a veteran organizer with the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), who heads the union's campaign on financial
reform.

The organizing campaign is spearheaded three community organizing
networks -
PICO, National People's Action (NPA), and the southeast region of the
Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) - along with SEIU and the AFL-CIO.
Organizers
believe that the recent victory on health care reform will help propel a
similar movement to take on banking giants.

"There's only one group of people in this country who are more hated
than
insurance companies," Lerner said. "That's the banks and Wall Street.
This is not complicated. A bunch of rich, greedy oligarchs crashed the
economy
and got bailed out by tax payers."

A new public opinion poll sponsored by the nonpartisan Pew Economic
Policy
Group confirms Lerner's observation. A national survey conducted in
March found
that 68% of the public have an unfavorable opinion of big banks.
Two-thirds of
the public blame either the big banks or Congress' failure to regulate
banks
for the current financial crisis. Seventy-nine percent think it is
important
for Congress to take action quickly to reform Wall Street's abuses.

To help channel public outrage, the coalition's short-term goal is to
push
Congress to enact strong consumer protection regulations on the
financial
industry. Their intermediate goal is to pressure banks to stop the
epidemic of
foreclosures and renegotiate mortgages so owners can keep their homes.
Their
long-term goal is to limit the banking industry's political clout and
its
economic influence. They believe banking should be reorganized so it
invests in
good jobs, affordable housing, and environmentally-friendly businesses.

"The big banks shattered our economy and left workers and our
communities
to clean up the pieces. We've lost 8 million jobs, 1 out of every 8
mortgages
is in default or foreclosure, and our cities, counties and states teeter
on the
edge of bankruptcy," said Heather Booth, executive director of Americans
for Financial Reform, a coalition of unions, consumer, and community
organizations. "Now the same banks that we bailed out with billions of
tax
dollars are pouring $1.4 million per day into the Senate to stop real
Wall
Street reform."

"This is a fight about which side are you on -- Main Street or Wall
Street? Main Street is organizing, forcing the politicians to decide
whether
they follow the money or support the American people," Booth noted.

Just as activists hope that voters will reward Congressmembers in
November who
supported health care reform, they want voters to re-elect politicians
who
support bank reform and punish politicians who are in the pockets of the
bank
lobby.

The protests will take place just as the Senate will be debating and
voting on
bank reform legislation. Progressive Democrats want the bill to include
strong
consumer protections, requirements that banks renegotiate mortgages for
families facing foreclosure, limits on the size of banks, and new
regulations
against Wall Street gambling with default swaps and derivatives.

The banking industry and its business allies are pushing hard to weaken
the
proposed regulations. In the past few months, the major banks, along
with the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have dramatically increased their lobbying
activities
and campaign donations to thwart reform. Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky,
the Republican leader, has become the banking industry's top ally, but
every
other Republican and some Democrats also oppose any reform that bank
lobbyists
don't like.

To rally public opinion, President Barack Obama gave a speech Thursday
at
Cooper Union in New York, close to Wall Street, and insisted that
Congress
needed to rein in the risky practices that led to the financial crisis
and the
recession. He criticized the "battalions of financial industry lobbyists
descending on Capitol Hill, as firms spend millions to influence the
outcome of
this debate."

"It is essential that we learn from the lessons of
this
crisis, so we don't doom ourselves to repeat it," Obama said. "And
make no mistake: That is exactly what will happen if we allow this
moment to
pass. And that's an outcome that is unacceptable to me, and it's
unacceptable
to you, the American people."

"Unless your business model depends on bilking
people,
there's little to fear from these new rules," Obama said to an audience
of
700 people that included Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and
executives from
JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and other financial
powerhouses.

"I want to urge you to join us, instead of fighting us in this
effort,I'm
here because I believe that these reforms are, in the end, not only in
the best
interest of our country, but in the best interest of the financial
sector."

For the activists, the battle to overhaul federal
banking
regulations is one part of a broader strategy.
"We have one eye on winning significant financial reform now and one eye
on building a movement for corporate accountability," explained George
Goehl, executive director of NPA, which has 25 community organizing
affiliates
in 14 states.

On Tuesday, April 27, organizers expect more than a
thousand
consumers, union members, and clergy to march through downtown San
Francisco to
Wells Fargo's annual shareholder meeting at the Merchants Exchange
Building.
Some of the protesters who have purchased Wells Fargo stock will
confront the
board of directors with a list of demands. On that day in Kansas City,
family
farmers, retirees, veterans and union members from Missouri, Kansas, and
Iowa
will march through that city's financial district to the Bank of
America, an
action that organizers are calling "showdown in the heartland."

The following day in Charlotte, N.C., veterans, clergy, and working
families
hurt by foreclosures and lay-offs will rally at the First United
Presbyterian
Church and then, proxies in hand, march to Bank of America's annual
shareholder
meeting at Belk Theater, while in Chicago, unions, community groups, and
faith-based activists will march to the corporate offices of Goldman
Sachs,
whose outrageous executive bonuses, illegal practices, and political
influence-peddling have made it the poster child for public anger
against big
banks. (Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Goldman
Sachs
of defrauding investors). NPA started the ball rolling last month by
announcing
and organizing the April 29th march on Wall Street. Organizers now
predict over
5,000 protesters, joined by AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, will march on
Thursday.

The protest actions will culminate in three-day
"Showdown
on K Street" in Washington, D.C. from May 15 to 17. The DC mobilization
will focus attention on the connections between the banking industry's
political clout through its huge campaign contributions and lobbying
warchest.
It will include a series of protests at the offices of corporate lobby
groups
and members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans -- with close ties
to the
banking establishment.

The protestors have a list of demands for each bank. In San Francisco,
for
example, they'll insist that Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf resign from the
board
of the Financial Services Roundtable, the powerful lobby group that
represents
the nation's largest banks and which is using its muscle to thwart the
proposed
federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency, one of the top priorities
of the
Obama administration and Congressional Democrats.

The grassroots delegation will also ask Wells Fargo to stop rampant
foreclosures and evictions of homeowners and tenants.

"Everyday Americans from all walks of life are going to be challenging
banks like Wells Fargo to keep families in their homes, to stop
predatory and
payday lending, and to start investing to create jobs and rebuild our
communities" explained Adam Kruggel, director of CCISCO, a PICO
affiliate
in northern California. "Wells Fargo was one of the biggest subprime
lenders in the United States and it has modified less than 8% of the
troubled
mortgages eligible under the president's Making Home Affordable program.
That
is unacceptable. It has an awful track record of predatory lending,
including
offering payday loans to its own customers at annual interest rates of
240%."

The bank reform coalition hopes to popularize a "move the money"
campaign to help channel public anger with the banking establishment.
Drawing
on the boycott tactics of the civil rights and labor movements, and the
divestment efforts that helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa, the
campaign is based on the idea that Americans should move their money
from
mega-banks that destroy jobs and communities to financial institutions
that act
more responsibly.

"Can you imagine what would happen if we could get the major labor
unions
and religious denominations, and even some local governments,
foundations, and
universities, to take their pension funds, endowments, and deposits out
of
banks that engage in abusive practices and into banks that support our
families
and communities?" asked Gerald Taylor, the southeast director for IAF, a
community organizing network with seven chapters in North Carolina,
including
one in Charlotte, where the Bank of America is headquartered.

In addition to mobilizing for federal reform legislation and pushing
banks to
address the foreclosure crisis, the coalition wants to draw attention to
the
banks' responsibility for state and municipal budget crises.

"Cities and states are cutting vital services, and laying off teachers
and
other employees, because the banks crashed the economy and starved local
and
state government of the revenues they need," explained Gordon Whitman,
director of public policy for PICO, which has 1,200 religious
congregations as
members in over 150 cities.

"The compensation bonus pool for the big six banks - over $130 billion
--
would solve the entire budget crisis for all the states," noted Lerner,
the SEIU organizer.

Activists in different cities have been organizing people to push for
municipal
legislation to hold banks accountable for exacerbating local economic
problems.
In Oakland, for example, SEIU and several community groups have
pressured the
City Council to demand that banks renegotiate or cancel interest-rate
swaps
that cost the city $5.2 million in fees. In Los Angeles, SEIU, LA Voice
(a PICO
affiliate), and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
(a new
organization formed by former leaders and staff of ACORN) worked with
City
Council member Richard Alarcon on legislation to renegotiate swap deals
on
municipal bonds and would require the City to move its investments
(including
$25 billion in pension funds and almost $1 billion in deposits) from
financial
institutions that failed to cooperate with local, state and national
foreclosure-prevention efforts.

At least five states have introduced legislation to
explore
how their deposits in banks can be used to guarantee reinvestment in
their
state and more responsible lending practices.

Grassroots organizing against the power of banks goes
back to
the agrarian Populist movement in the late 1800s. In the 1970s,
community
organizing against redlining - racial discrimination in mortgage lending
and
bank divestment from inner cities - led to passage of the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977, led by NPA. Over the past decade, ACORN,
along
with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the Center for
Responsible
Lending, and NPA, led the fight against predatory lending and the
foreclosure
epidemic. NPA is now mobilizing people in cities around the country to
hold
banks and bank regulators accountable. Two years ago, for example, NPA
brought
over 500 people to a protest at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's
house
in Washington, D.C. Since then, NPA leaders have meet with Bernanke
three
times, pushing him and his staff to toughen regulations on rip-off "pay
day" lenders and to update the CRA.

The battle for bank reform has triggered new
alliances. This
is the first time that PICO, NPA, and IAF have worked together on a
common
campaign. And the recent involvement of the labor movement in the battle
against Wall Street and the big banks injects additional political clout
into
the activist coalition.

"We need stronger reform of Wall Street, but we also
need
a new business model for banking," said PICO's Whitman. "We need to
get back to the day when people could trust their banks and banks made
their
money by lending to homeowners and small businesses, not speculating in
the
Wall Street casino. We want to squeeze speculation out of the banking
system.
This is about rebuilding our communities and our economy."

More information about
the
activities in each city and the coalition's broader agenda can be found
at: https://showdowninamerica.org
and https://www.ourmoneyourvalues.org.