Workers, Community Put Wells Fargo On Trial

WELLS FARGO ON TRIAL: Activists and community groups charge Wells-Fargo with "killing the American Dream."

Accused of "killing the American Dream," Wells-Fargo Bank was put on trial by community, labor and religious organizations at a downtown demonstration Thursday.  UE members were among hundreds of people on hand for the event, held in front the Bank’s offices at lunch time. The occasion was the one-year anniversary of the the massive federal bailout of the banking industry, during which Wells-Fargo received $25 billion from U.S. taxpayers.

CHARGES

Instead of using the money as Congress intended, to offset the effects of the recession, activists accuse the bank of adding to it’s profits through unscrupulous lending practices, hiking penalties and interest rates, and targeting minorities with bad mortgages deals. UE Local 1174 members at Quad City Die Casting in Moline, IL, have been waging a fight for justice against the bank since early this summer.

UE LOCAL 1174 MEMBERS

Local 1174 members from offered their testimony at Thursday’s demonstration:  Wells Fargo cut off financing to their company, wouldn’t help sell the business to preserve their jobs, and on September 4 forced its closing, throwing more than 100 people out of work. Adding insult to injury, Wells Fargo is refusing to pay workers’ vacation pay or to cover over $45,000 of medical bills incurred when the company illegally and retroactively cancelled their insurance.

Chicago’s Jobs with Justice website quoted Deb Johann, UE Local 1174 Recording Secretary, as saying “Wells Fargo first ends financing, forcing our company to close, and now they won’t pay us what we are owed by law. To us, our vacation, insurance and wages mean everything to our families. But to Wells Fargo it’s pennies, not even a blip in their billions. Yet they choose to cheat us out of what we have earned. And to think we helped them out when they needed it!”

'GUILTY!

For stiffing workers on the pay and benefits they are owed, and adding to unemployment, Wells Fargo was found guilty, 

Other witnesses testified about being evicted from their homes – both tenants and former homeowners who are now homeless because of Well Fargo’s greed. Testimony included stories about families who have become homeless; communities blighted by block after block of vacant properties that just a few years ago were family homes, now decaying from the neglect and workers thrown out of work, unable to find new jobs. Repeatedly, the activists argued that the $700 billion bailout of the bankers has been a raw deal for workers and working families.

The protest ended with the large crowd encircling the entire block with crime scene tape and chanting, “Wells Fargo this sucks! Where’s our $25 billion bucks?” and “You got bailed out, we got sold out!”