Protest the "Bailout Bandits" - Oct 27

Community and Labor organizations are coming to Chicago from across the country to protest the "Bailout Bandits," at the American Bankers Association convention in Chicago.

These big banks wrecked our economy, then took bailouts adding up to $15,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, then they pushed people out of jobs and homes while giving themselves record bonuses.

Click here to sign up to be on the NA4J bus on Tuesday, Oct 27.


For fact sheets on the bailout bandits, flyers you can download and more info on the days of action, check out:

www.jwj.org/bailoutbandits

http://www.stopbankgreed.org/get-the-facts/

www.showdowninchicago.org

Victory for the Bledsoe Family

Weeks of grassroots action, including collecting over 700 support postcards from neighbors, has led HUD, IHDA and Northpoint to work out a plan to keep the Bledsoe Family in their Rogers Park home.

Check out more of the story and video of the action at HUD here.

For info on a victory party, come to the NA4J membership meeting,
Thursday, Oct 22, 6:30pm, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr #312

info@actionforjustice.org

Orphaned Kids Face Eviction

Aimco Corporation -- the for-profit comapny that owns Rogers Park's Northpoint apartments and many other properties around the country -- wants to evict Rosetta Bledsoe's grandchildren. Aimco claims that, because Rosetta died and their new guardian, their Aunt Erica Bledsoe, wasn't previously on the lease, that the orphaned children will be evicted from their home of many years.

Click Here to help stop this eviction.

Action for Justice is part of the ad hoc Bledsoe support committee, helped with a rally on July and is asking people to tell HUD to step in and stop the eviction. HUD provides the funding to Aimco/Northpoint. And is supposed to help alleviate the affordable housing crisis.

Volunteers are also collecting support postcards at Triangle Park on Sept 26 and Oct 3.

For more background on the story, see Chicago Now and the Tribune.

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Update:

Ad Hoc Bledsoe Support Committee has been formed and is online here.

Support workers on strike over health care

NA4J members joined Norma Trinidad and 20 of her co-workers in front of the Sears store on Dearborn in Chicago’s Loop September 18, handing out leaflets. These workers, members of Teamsters local 743, are in strike against SK Hand Tools, and were asking Sears customers not to buy tools made by SK.

“They took away our health care,” Norma told people as they entered the store.

On August 25, the workers struck because Claude Fuger, the wealthy French businessman that owns SK Handtools, had stopped paying their health insurance premiums – in violation of their contract. To put additional pressure on Fuger, workers are asking for help from shoppers at Sears, which is the largest purchaser of SK and Craftsman brands made at the SK factory on 47^th Strteet.

The workers plan to go to Oak Brook mall on Saturday. The Sears store there is having a sale on hand tools.

Supporters can call the CEO of SK Hand Tools at 800-752-7263 (tell them everyone needs health care and restore the coverage workers are owed), or call Sears at 847-286-2500 to protest their sale of SK products.

As part of its striker support, NA4J brought several cases of produce for the people on strike.

Job loss = evictions = high vacancy = deeper crisis

The economic crisis and loss of jobs add to high vacancy in rental housing. Until recently, high health

A study by Depaul University shows that with unemployment hitting blue collar workers more, low and moderate income neighborhoods are hit much harder by vacancies, which add blight to communities.

The report indicates that the unemployment and the slow economy have lowered incomes and have caused many families to "double up" or move in with another family resulting in a stagnant rental market and higher vacancies.

The Chicago Rehab Network has a summary of the nearly 7,000 foreclosures in Chicago in just the first 3 months of 2009 -- and the main "corporate criminals" responsible for these evictions.

Health care crises and job loss (which often means loss of health insurance) are leading causes of foreclosures and bankruptcies.

Protest the Bailout Bandits

Protest the
"Bailout Bandits"
Thursday, September 24
12 Noon
Wells Fargo
(Monroe & Franklin)

As part of a national week of actions for economic recovery, NA4J part of a community-labor coalition that will put Wells Fargo and the other bailout bandits on trial for their corporate crimes.


The "too big to fail" banks took billions in bailouts -- both through the $700 Billion TARP and far more through Federal reserve -- supposedly to save the economy by offering credit to keep people working through the recession. Instead they made money from gambling with our money, paid themselves bonuses and continue to force people out of jobs and out of homes.

If you're fed up with Congress being owned by the banks, tired of the bailout bandits taking our money and using it to fight any reforms and block a recovery for the rest of us, if you agree that we need good jobs and affordable housing for everyone ...

Join us September 24
(and again October 27)

Bailed Out CEOs pocket cash, sell out workers

Since Jan. 1, 2008, the top 20 financial industry recipients of bailout aid have together laid off more than 160,000 employees.

In 2008, the 20 CEOs at these firms each averaged $13.8 million in compensation, for a collective total of over $250 million. As obscene as CEO salaries are generally, these 'bailout bandit' CEOs made out with 37% more than the average CEO of the S&P 500.

In other words, the banksters that wrecked their companies and the economy, directly laid off 160,000 workers, forced hundreds of thousands of others out of jobs by refusing to extend credit to companies like Quad Cities Die Casting, Republic Windows and Doors, Qimondo actually made more money than average top CEOs of the biggest corporations.

Another reason to go to the protest Sept 24 at Wells Fargo.