causes & news

Bank of America received a total $45 billion in federal bailout money. And what are they using it on? Covering an estimated $4 billion in bonuses to already high-paid employees of recently acquired Merrill Lynch took up one chunk of the money. Or there's the accounts of a former Merrill executive who spent $1.2 million renovating his office--because the existing office was "very different than the general decor ... it really would have been very difficult for me to use in the form that it was in."

But what really gets me is an account that just came out this week on Huffington Post--complete with audio--that three days after receiving $25 billion of the bailout money, Bank of America sponsored a conference call about how to obstruct the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act is a high-profile piece of legislation that big corporations have been successfully blocking in Congress for several years. But there's hope that the bill, which would make it easier for workers to unite, can pass with the Democrat-controlled Congress, and President Obama has pledged to support it.

CEOs and conservative activists gathered on Bank of America's conference call line to strategize how to stop the Employee Free Choice Act. HuffPo has this report:

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

This "civilization" Marcus--who previously said CEOs who didn't fight the Employee Free Choice Act "should be shot"--is referring to is the executive-greed-first civilization that's led to our current economic crisis. Bank of America's tellers reportedly earn $24,000 a year, and in many states, employees have to rely on public health care because they don't make enough money. All while executives bring in seven-figure incomes.

Labor powerhouse Service Employees International Union is standing up to Bank of America, calling for their CEO to be replaced with someone who puts workers' rights first.

You can take action by calling on Bank of America to support a real economic recovery by:
- Committing to providing affordable healthcare to all of its 247,000 employees and their dependents.
- Keeping more than 12,000 troubled borrowers in their homes with executive bonus money.
- Ending the practice of unilaterally changing credit cardholder agreements.
- Signing new leases with renters who live in buildings that are being foreclosed upon.
- Strictly enforcing whistleblower protections to workers who report bank fraud and predatory practices.

Actions like these would support a real economic recovery--and not set American workers back more than they already are, like Bank of America's most recent actions have been doing. Sign the petition today.

Read more: politics, SEIU, corporate-greed, bailout, BofA, bank-of-america