UE Quad City Members Picket Wells Fargo, Fight to Save Jobs

ROCK ISLAND, IL

UE Local 1174 members and supporters picket at a Wells Fargo Bank office in Rock Island, Il., Tuesday. Below is footage of the event posted on YouTube.

UE Local 1174 members were once again picketing at Wells Fargo bank Tuesday, fighting to save 80 union jobs at Quad City Die Casting, which is scheduled to close in July because Wells Fargo Bank has cut off its credit line.

This time the demonstration was at Wells Fargo’s Rock Island branch office, and the protesters were over 100 strong, including members of various unions. A week earlier UE members visited a Wells Fargo corporate office across the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa. The bank rejected their request for a meeting to discuss the future of Quad City Die Casting

Notice of Default

Workers served on the bank a super-sized “notice of default” on its obligations to the American people for the $25 billion bailout received from taxpayers. Wells Fargo, one of the country’s largest banks, was a big beneficiary of last fall’s bailout of the banking industry. Yet it has cut off credit to Quad City, a 60-year-old locally-owned Moline company.

'Fundamentally Sound'

Quad City’s business is fundamentally sound, but since the fall it has experienced a drop in orders due to the recession. The company has not filed for bankruptcy and has indicated no plans to do so. However Wells Fargo’s action, unless reversed, will drive it out of business and put a total of 100 employees out of work.

Echoing the slogan of UE Local 1110 members at Republic Windows and Doors during their plant occupation in December, union members in Rock Island chanted, "You got bailed out; we got sold out.” Jaimie Laird, a Quad City Die casting machine operator, told a reporter from the Quad Cities Dispatch Argus that he's worked for the company for three decades. "It means my livelihood is what it means," he said of the financing that the company needs from Wells Fargo. His coworker Deb Johann, added, "We want to keep our jobs."