[Peace-discuss] US unions protest bailout

[Ricky Baldwin]

Still waiting for my big fat check, how about you?

 Ricky


"Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin

 
 
 
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Labor unions protest in NY against bailout
Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:05am EDT
By Christian Wiessner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hard hats, transit workers, machinists,
teachers and other labor unionists railed against the U.S. government's
proposed bailout of Wall Street on Thursday in a protest steps from the
New York Stock Exchange.
Several hundred protesters yelled their enthusiastic support as
union leaders decried a proposed $700 billion plan aimed at
reinvigorating the credit markets by relieving financial institutions
of distressed debt.
"The Bush administration wants us to pay the freight for a Wall
Street bailout that does not even begin to address the roots of our
crisis," said AFL-CIO National President John Sweeney.
"We want our tax dollars used to provide a hand up for the millions
of working people who live on Main Street and not a handout to a
privileged band of overpaid executives."
Signs read "No Blank Checks For Wall Street" and "Our Hard-Earned
Pensions Are Not Up For Grabs." Protesters cheered repeated calls for
the government to spend money on education, health care and housing as
freely and readily as it was proposing to do for Wall Street.
"We know that the economic situation has to be solved. But we want a
responsible rescue, not an opportunistic bailout," said United
Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
"And that means, just like every single boss says to me, that there
should be accountability for the teachers, then there should be
accountability for Wall Street," he said.
"The bailout is a sellout unless it includes the victims of the
tyranny," civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson told reporters
after the rally. "The homeowners need long-term, low interest rate
loans and the restructuring of loans, not the repossession of homes."
"This is a Roosevelt moment," Jackson said, referring to former
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's program to lift the United States out
of the Great Depression. "It's time for reconstruction of manufacturing
law, trade law and banking transparency."
(Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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