Charleston unions protest banker bonuses, lack of lending
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Erica Peterson Kenny Perdue (AFL-CIO), Gary Zuckett (WV Citizen Action Group) and Mike Matthews (Kanawha Valley Labor Council) protest in front of Charleston's Wells Fargo building. |
March 17, 2010 ·
As unemployment rates rise, both in WV and nationwide, local unions are demanding that banks forgo banker bonuses and extend credit to entrepreneurs. At a rally in Charleston on Wednesday, citizens protested outside the city’s Wells Fargo building.
A group of about thirty gathered outside Wells Fargo’s Charleston
location—the building doesn’t contain a bank branch, but financial advisors.
The rally was part of a two-week-long nationwide campaign to target large
banks and urge them to invest in their communities.
Kenny Perdue is the president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO.
“We’ve got a lot of people that are unemployed—10 percent
here in West Virginia alone,” he
said. “They could help with the unemployment. They could help create jobs. They
could help redo a community like this and invest some money in here. And that
comes in plain and simple, just putting a loan out there to a small
entrepreneur.”
The protesters waved signs demanding more jobs and
denouncing “fat cat” bankers. Many were angry about the vast sums of bailout
money poured into the nation’s biggest banks, and how many banks rewarded their
executives with large bonuses. Joan Matthews lives in Charleston.
“I’m out here protesting against the big bankers, the CEOs
that’s receiving the big bonuses after we bailed them out,” she said. “And a
lot of them paid back their money and that’s fine. But the billions that have
gone into bonuses could help create jobs and they should give back, not take.”
Wells Fargo did repay their $25 billion bailout last
December; they were among the last of the largest banks to do so.
Jerry Scarbro stood by the side of the road wearing a hard
hat and holding a sign that read “Good Jobs for America.”
He’s a union drywall finisher and painter.
“We want the banks to turn loose some of the money that
they’re holding and help us, help the small man work,” he said. “We’re just
after a job.”
Wednesday’s event was co-sponsored by the West Virginia AFL-CIO
and West Virginians United for Social and Economic Justice.