For Immediate Release
March 25, 2009
Contact: Mary Gutierrez
Cell: 213.276.3384
Workers to Demand Bailout Accountability From Banks: Don’t Spend a Dime of Our Tax Dollars to Deny Us a Fair Piece of the Pie!
WHAT: Several banks that received taxpayer funded bail-out money have begun spending what’s expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation that would aid in the economic recovery of our nation by allowing workers to earn better wages, health care and retirement benefits by signing a card to join a union.
In response, hundreds of workers will gather in Downtown Los Angeles and march to 7 different banks to demand that Wall Street stop using our tax dollars to block employees’ freedom to choose a union. Delegations featuring workers who have tried to organize to improve their standard of living will enter each bank and demand answers. Outside each bank, others will rally, and pass out leaflets and FREE PIE with the message that everyone who works deserves a piece of our economic pie.
Congressman George Miller and Senator Tom Harkin introduced the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress on February 10th.
WHEN: Thursday, March 26 @ noon (event will end at 1:30 pm)
WHERE: March kick-off: Downtown L.A. outside of Bank of America, 333 S. Hope St.
March ending: Downtown L.A. outside of Citibank, 555 S. Flower
WHO: Workers from various industries
VISUALS: Photo ops at 2 rallies, workers with signs. Sidewalk shots of free pie, leaflets, and signs. Opportunities to embed in worker delegations into the banks.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO is the chartered Central Labor Council (CLC) of the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles County and is the second largest in the country, representing over 800,000 workers through over 350 unions. Its mission is to promote a voice for workers so they can remain in the middle class, move themselves out of poverty by joining a union, encourage active participation in the political process by electing pro-union and pro-worker officials and to advance public policies that support workers and their families. As the coordinating center for labor’s political activity, the Federation believes that in educating and mobilizing workers to be politically active they can create and sustain healthy communities, and FIGHT FOR GOOD JOBS that REBUILD THE LOS ANGELES MIDDLE CLASS. Visit the Federation at www.launionaflcio.org.
With 2 million members nationwide, SEIU represents over 700,000 workers throughout California in all of its diversity. SEIU members in California are social workers, nurses, classroom aides, security officers, college professors, homecare workers, janitors, and more.
