People Before Profit blog

New Jersey apologizes for slavery

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:48:00 +0000

New Jersey recently became the first Northern state to issue an apology for slavery, which claimed the lives of millions of African people “imported” to North America since the 17th century. In 1865, when slavery was abolished with the victory of the United States of America over the slaveholder-controlled Confederate States of America in the Civil War, there were nearly 4 million people in bondage.

Slavery was a lucrative business connected to the development of capitalism as it expanded in the first half of the 19th century, linking New York bankers with Mississippi plantation owners. Slave workers produced major cash crops: tobacco, sugar and especially cotton for the developing textile industry. Most of the value created by U.S exports before the Civil War was produced by slave labor.

Also, Native Americans were driven off their lands as part of Andrew Jackson’s murderous “Indian removal” policy of forced relocation to make way for the development of large slave plantations.

The slaveholder class dominated the slave states and exercised power over the federal government, largely through the presidency. Of the first 16 U.S. presidents, eight were slaveholders, including Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and Polk. Polk annexed Texas and conquered the Mexican northwest in the Mexican-American War, which abolitionists saw as a war on behalf of the slave power.

The cruelties of slavery are too great to summarize, but it should be remembered that slave workers were treated, in effect, as farm animals, bought and sold, beaten when they didn’t work up to expectations, and fed and clothed at the lowest level necessary to keep them working. The system denied the humanity of the slave workers in order to both shield and justify the inhumanity of the slave owners.

It took a revolutionary civil war to end slavery, but its social consequences didn’t end. The struggle for the civil rights of millions of former slave workers was lost in the late 1870s as Northern capitalists, who had fought the war to gain hegemony over the slaveholder class, not to “free the slaves,” concluded that their main enemy now was an alliance of former slaves and poor whites in the South and potential solidarity of whites and Blacks in the developing Northern labor movement.

With federal indifference and a pro-big-business Supreme Court’s blessing, Ku Klux Klan terror and “conservative” white supremacy governments created a racist dictatorship in the former slave states based on segregation in all public life from education and transportation to public bathrooms; voter disenfranchisement; and removal of African Americans from police forces, juries and general citizenship participation. Poll taxes also reduced the civil rights of poor whites, who were encouraged to blame Blacks for their problems, as in slavery times.

As the 20th century opened, slavery was seen nationally as an issue of the past. Many former slave states flew the Confederate flag in courtrooms and over state capitols with impunity. Lincoln freed the slaves in the 1860s and that ended the issue, generations of Americans were taught. One could celebrate Lincoln’s birthday and forget what was going on in contemporary America, both South and North.

Today, in the 21st century, Americans are taught that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement ended segregation in the 1960s and established equal rights. One can celebrate King’s birthday and forget about institutional and ideological racism, both North and South.

New Jersey’s apology helps Americans remember both slavery and, by implication, the segregation and racist terror that followed the defeat of Reconstruction.

Other states and Congress should issue apologies as well. The Supreme Court might even issue an apology for its Dred Scott decision, and its rulings in the 1880s and 1890s reversing Reconstruction civil rights laws and supporting segregation and de facto disenfranchisement. Most of all, the U.S should revive affirmative action policies, which began in the 1960s to eradicate the crippling effects of institutional racism, slavery’s real “legacy.”

History is about learning from the past to apply that knowledge in the present and build a progressive future. Along with its recent abolition of the death penalty, New Jersey’s formal apology for the horrors of slavery should be emulated at all levels through the country. It is a step in the right direction and, like ending the death penalty, it is what one should expect as right conduct from a civilized society,

Norman Markowitz is a history professor at Rutgers University.

To fix economy, put working class first

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:33:00 +0000

While stock markets plunge and panic spreads in financial circles, what happens when the economy goes into recession?

What kind of stimulus package is needed that would help working families? One that creates good jobs and ensures workers and their neighbors can pay their house or car note, buy groceries, fill up their gas tanks or make college tuition payments?

On Capital Hill, with unemployment jumping to 5 percent in December, and other indicators of major economic illness, lawmakers are starting to consider stimulus ideas.

President Bush and fellow Republicans want to pump $150 billion into tax cuts and government spending geared to big business interests and the wealthy.

But labor and other progressive groups say the key is putting money into the hands of working people. It’s working people who are the nation’s consumers. They can spur the economy if they have the income to buy what they need.

The AFL-CIO and others are calling for extending jobless benefits beyond the current 26 weeks. The labor federation also calls for:

• increased food stamp benefits;

• tax rebates targeted to middle- and lower-income taxpayers,

• fiscal relief for state and local governments;

• immediate investment in school renovations and bridge repair.

Many of these measures are contained in proposals being advanced by Democrats in Congress.

Communist Party USA head Sam Webb underscored the importance of these steps, but said more is also needed.

In addition to extending jobless benefits, the amounts unemployed workers receive should be raised, and paid until a worker finds a job, he said in a phone interview this week. “Social Security benefits also should be raised.”

Webb also called for an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and a freeze on interest rates, and an end to the Iraq war, “freeing up billions of dollars for people’s needs.”

Beyond these measures, fundamental solutions are required and these must put the working class first, he emphasized

Webb, elected the party’s chair in 2000, has a Masters degree in economics. But he considers his main credentials to be his activism in the labor movement and people’s struggles over the past few decades.

“People are hurting,” he said. “Unemployment is rising, and even those figures cover up the long-term joblessness in different parts of the country and among different communities,” he said. “Wages are stagnant and now you have the mortgage

crisis.”

Tax breaks for big business and the super-rich will only increase the deficit and will not create jobs, Webb said. Interest rate cuts will likely have little impact.

Big business’ interest is not the well being of U.S. workers, or even the U.S. economy, he said. “Businesses will only invest if they are guaranteed a high rate of return — profit — on their investment. They won’t hire new workers and put money in people’s hands without that guarantee.”

This is the main dynamic of capitalism, which has become more and more apparent to millions as plants close, wages stagnate, and whole regions collapse economically, Webb said.

Even as the country experienced economic upticks like the stock market “exuberance” of the 1990s and the housing “bubble” of the past several years, greater and greater wealth went into fewer and fewer hands.

A growing problem, Webb said, is the role of “finance capital” — banks and financial institutions. Instead of spurring the economy, they invested in nonproductive sectors like currency speculation, “where enormous money was made” along with enormous crises felt around the world.

Corporate America and the super-rich, ever in quest of maximum profits, will not invest their ballooning wealth when and where our society needs it, Webb said.

Therefore, as in the 1930s, the federal government must act to create useful, good paying public sector jobs and get immediate relief into the people’s hands, he said. That is what’s needed to stimulate the economy.

“There are long-term unmet needs in the U.S.,” Webb noted. “Bridges, schools and water systems are collapsing. Many people realize that in both urban and rural settings infrastructure is long overdue for repair.”

He cited an Environmental Protection Agency estimate that 75,000 sanitary systems nationally have overflowed with raw sewage, flooding houses and polluting drinking water and natural habitats.

The labor-backed Economic Policy Institute has proposed a $140 billion stimulus package that calls for federal spending to repair and build schools and bridges, creating more than 1 million jobs.

Webb added that the elections provide an opportunity to create new political terrain to fight against economic crisis in the near and longer term.

“It’s going to take a broad coalition of labor, African Americans, Latinos, all people of color, women, young people — all people — coming together and demanding this kind of economic program,” Webb said.

“Struggle. That’s what it will take to move the country along on a different track and put a working-class imprint on it.”

talbano@pww.org

Florida primaries put taxes, delegates on the line

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:07:00 +0000

TALLAHASSEE—When Florida voters go to the polls here on Jan. 29 they will be asked to do more than vote for their choices among the Democratic or GOP contenders for the White House. They’ll also be asked to vote on a controversial constitutional amendment on property taxes that has pitted Florida’s teacher and public service unions against Florida’s governor and some wealthy allies such as real estate mogul and television celebrity Donald Trump.

In an election season that has seen the race for the Democratic nomination evolve into a neck-and-neck contest between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and with no clear front-runner on the Republican side, the issues at hand are already compelling. But there’s more.

When Florida Democrats go to the polls they will be acting in open defiance of the Democratic National Committee which has threatened not to recognize any of the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention. This is an internal Democratic Party battle that has pitted DNC National Chair Howard Dean against Senator Bill Nelson, with the Florida Democratic Party lining up solidly against the national organization.

For some, the DNC threat not to recognize the results of the primary vote harkens back to the disenfranchisement of broad segments of the Florida vote in 2000 at the hands of Florida’s then governor John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, the brother of the current president, and his then Secretary of State Katherine Harris; an election that brought the term “pregnant chad” into the political lexicon.

The move has angered Florida’s Democrats, still smarting from the lessons of eight years ago, and resulted in all the major contenders for the Democratic nomination honoring a DNC-instigated ban against campaigning in the state. In the minds of most experienced political observers here, in the last analysis, the DNC will be compelled to accept Florida’s delegates in the interests of winning this November.

On the GOP side, most of the strenuous campaigning has been done by former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Republican strategists, like their Democratic counterparts, have identified Florida as a “must win” state. In contrast to the Democrats, however, GOP contenders have campaigned with impunity—another factor making local Democrats irate. Giuliani hopes Florida Republicans will jump-start his sagging campaign fortunes and revive him as a force to be reckoned with in a race with no clear front-runner.

Floridians will also be drawn to the polls by a controversial constitutional amendment that proposes an increase in the state’s homestead exemption for homeowners from $25,000 to $50,000 along with a provision giving second home owners future tax breaks by ensuring the assessments on their homes would increase by no more than 10 percent a year. The average Florida taxpayer would realize savings of $240 per year.

The amendment was hastily put together by Florida’s GOP-dominated state legislature and Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican who has wasted no time in distancing himself from some of the policies of his predecessor. The Florida Association of Realtors has donated $1 million to the pro-amendment drive; the Florida Medical Association has donated $50,000; and real estate mogul Donald Trump hosted a $1,000 a plate dinner in early December to support the initiative. Trump paid about $1 million in taxes last year on his $56 million Palm Beach estate, according to a report appearing last month in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The amendment is opposed by numerous forces, anchored by the Florida AFL-CIO, Florida Teachers Association, the Firefighters union, and the Florida PTA. These forces point out that the “portability” provision in the amendment will result in decreased funding for a variety of public services, including the police and fire departments, and see a loss of $1.5 billion in revenue for public schools over the next five years.

Most of Florida’s major newspapers, including most recently the Miami Herald, have opposed the amendment. “[I]n exchange for a small measure of relief, residents are guaranteed deeper cuts in local services,” said the Herald in its Jan. 21 editorial. Meanwhile, the state’s creaky, inefficient and archaic tax system will remain in place. “They say that it is bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this is an exception to the rule. Give this nag back to the Legislature and tell lawmakers that voters want something better.”

A quick look at the Nevada caucus results

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:16:00 +0000

Hillary Clinton won the Nevada caucuses today by about a 5 percent margin over Barack Obama. (Almost 51 percent went for Clinton and just over 45 percent for Obama with 90 percent of the precincts reporting). John Edwards came in a distant third with less than 4 percent of the vote.

Billed as the “first test in the West,” the Nevada date was moved up this year in order to bring early attention to western issues. It’s also been called the “Latino Iowa” and the first sample of the Mexican American and Latino vote.

The big story was the Democratic turnout, which topped 100,000, smashing all predictions, according to Reno Gazette Journal blogger Anjeanette Damon. The Republican turnout also topped expectations. Mitt Romney, the only GOP candidate to campaign in Nevada, won.

For all you Midwesterners, Southerners and Easterners: Western issues include water, Native American rights, land use, environment and the role of the federal government.

In Nevada, whether Yucca Mountain will be the receptacle for the nation’s nuclear waste is a specific issue for the state. As far as I know, all the Democratic candidates are against dumping the toxins there.

But some critics contend that outside of Yucca Mountain, the “western issues” were not addressed.

Then there are two issues in Nevada that are national issues as well: the housing crisis and immigration. Immigration — and especially the anti-immigrant crackdown and rhetoric that has been coming out of the Republicans and right wing — has roiled a large section of the Mexican American and Latino vote away from the GOP. Latinos make up a sizeable percentage of the Nevada population and voters.

Clinton has consistently polled double-digits ahead of Obama among Latino voters. She has her husband’s presidency, name recognition and numerous well-known Latino figures behind her, among them United Farm Worker co-founder Dolores Huerta. As a law student and child advocate, Clinton did a lot of work on issues affecting children of farmworkers. She has a national profile that has translated to strong showing in the polls against her main rival, Obama, who doesn’t have such a strong national reputation, or the Democratic Party infrastructure ties that Clinton has.

Women, especially those 55 and over, favor Clinton, while it seems that younger women have gravitated to the Obama campaign.

Obama went into Nevada with a deficit and gave Clinton a good run for her money. He garnered the very important endorsements of the culinary workers union, the state’s largest with 60,000 members and a large Latino membership, and the state SEIU, another organizing powerhouse. He has also begun to pick up endorsements from Latino leaders, such as the personal endorsement by Maria Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Obama’s and Clinton’s stands on immigration are similar: they are for legalization, family reunification and “border security” — something that has become a way to try to blunt (or appease?) the right-wing anti-immigrant forces as well as to acknowledge the crime that does happen at the border by human and drug traffickers from many countries, including the U.S.

Obama’s campaign has a lot of catching up to do in the West, especially if he wants to take the delegate-rich state of California. Its primary, along with 21 other states, is Feb. 5 — known as Super Tuesday.

With Las Vegas being the fastest-growing union city in the country, and the overall explosion of growth in the region, many people bought homes in the area, often with subprime mortgages. Now Nevada is an epicenter of foreclosures, with the accompanying decline in housing prices.

One frequent visitor to North Las Vegas told me, “You see lots of for-sale signs. It’s really eerie.”

The Nevada campaign saw a lot of political wrangling and even some dirty tricks. The state teachers association, which backed Clinton, sued over caucuses being held in casinos because they said it gave casino workers, whose union backed Obama, an “unfair advantage.” The teachers lost their suit. Clinton alleged the union was “strong arming” its members to go with Obama.

Clinton also went after Obama’s position on raising the income cap on Social Security, calling it a “tax hike.” Now only the first $90,000 of income gets taxed for Social Security. Progressives have long advocated lifting that cap since wealthier people don’t pay their fair share. The increased money flowing into Social Security could raise benefits for all, and do other positive things.

Obama was forced to fire back at the Clinton campaign for distorting his stances. This has put his campaign on the defensive, and most people get turned off by such political wrangling.

Unidentified persons also made calls attacking Obama and using his middle name, Hussein, over and over again.

Interestingly enough, Obama won several northern Nevada counties, but did not win Clark County where Las Vegas is. Yet Obama won the “battle” at the Caesar’s Palace caucus by a delegate. Apparently it was evenly split with some casino workers going with Clinton despite their union’s endorsement of Obama, and steelworkers from a nearby work site also caucusing for Clinton. (The steelworkers union has endorsed Edwards, so I don’t know if this is an indication that they are now throwing their support to Clinton.)

But in the end, after much reported shouting between the red t-shirted Obama supporters and the white t-shirted Clinton supporters, Obama won that casino caucus. But Clinton won the strip.

And now it’s on to South Carolina.

Teresa Albano (talbano @ pww.org) is editor of People's Weekly World.

Proposed Calif. budget cuts stir outrage

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:25:00 +0000

Healthcare and education advocates, and Democratic legislative leaders, are expressing outrage at the proposals Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made last week for a 10 percent across-the-boards cut in the state’s budget, to offset a $14.5 billion shortfall anticipated in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The governor reiterated his insistence on no new taxes, and resurrected a spending cap proposal, similar to one that was resoundingly defeated along with other Schwarzenegger-initiated ballot measures in a 2005 special election.

Schwarzenegger also declared a fiscal emergency and called the legislature into special session to consider an anticipated $3.3 billion shortfall in the current budget. Under a 2004 ballot measure, the legislature now has 45 days to pass a measure dealing with the fiscal emergency. If they fail to do so, they cannot consider other legislation.

Among the proposed cuts:

• An immediate $360 million from K-12 education and $40 million from community colleges, followed by a $4 billion reduction in the next fiscal year. This would necessitate suspending Prop. 98, approved by voters two decades ago to guarantee a minimum level of school funding.

• Over $1 billion in cuts to healthcare, including reduced payments to providers under Medi-Cal, which serves the poorest Californians.

• Savings of over $70 million this year and nearly $390 million next year in child welfare, supplemental security income for the elderly and disabled, and foster care programs.

• Cuts affecting 48 state parks, including indefinite closure of 43 parks, to save $1 million this year and $13.3 million next year.

• Early release of 22,000 prisoners incarcerated for nonviolent crimes.

Transportation, environment and higher education would also be affected.

Calling the proposals “bleak,” Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) said, “The fundamental question we must ask ourselves is: What kind of state do we want? Do we want to make mediocrity our baseline? Do we want our public schools to remain 43rd in the nation? Do we want to take away vital assistance from the poor, elderly and disabled?”

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said, “if passed as written, [the budget] would cause a lot of permanent harm.”

The Health Access coalition of over 200 organizations said cuts in payments to health providers would “significantly reduce access to doctors, hospitals, and specialists for the over six million Californians with Medi-Cal coverage, and many others.” Elimination of dental coverage for low income parents, seniors and disabled people, and increased paperwork requirements affecting low income families will further hurt the most vulnerable Californians, Health Access said.

The education community also reacted quickly. “What was billed as the Year of Education is shaping up as the Year of Cutting Education,” California Federation of Teachers President Marty Hittleman said in a statement. He warned that the funding cuts “propel our state backward, away from improved educational outcomes.” Hittleman said the CFT will work for “new progressive taxes” to fund education.

While Schwarzenegger blamed much of the deficit on increased state spending, the California Budget Project pointed out that a number of the actions the governor initiated or supported have contributed to the gap, including making permanent an earlier temporary cut in the vehicle license fee.

California is far from alone in facing a budget shortfall. The Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said last month that 13 states face a combined budget shortfall of at least $23 billion in fiscal 2009, while another 11 states expect budget problems in the next year or two. The Center cited loss of tax revenues related to the housing crisis as a contributing factor, but also emphasized tax cuts enacted without an accurate view of affordability, and reliance on one-time revenues to balance budgets.

mbechtel @ pww.org

EDITORIAL: Keep our eyes on the prize

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:28:00 +0000

It’s a good sign to see Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama providing leadership on race and gender equality. The candidates decided to dial down the volume on what was becoming a brew of racism and political wrangling that would only leave voters with a bad taste in their mouths.

Charges by the Clinton camp that Obama had “injected” race into the campaign were seen as a politically cynical move to protect the senator from New York against charges of chauvinism over remarks that she, her husband and her supporters made recently. According to journalist Carl Bernstein’s biography of Hillary Clinton, “A Woman in Charge,” the Clintons have a history of running such “demonizing” campaigns.

Clinton supporters should try hard not to feed into division while still supporting their candidate. The effort by the Nevada State Education Association to move caucus sites outside of casinos, because they fear a heavy turnout of casino workers whose union backs Obama, will only help to sow division in the labor movement. Similar maneuvers were reported in Iowa, like trying to keep college students from voting. These ploys only serve to decrease the vote turnout and weaken the coalition necessary to win in November.

Such campaigns run contrary to the wishes and aspirations of the public, which is hungry for a new direction for the country. After seven years of Bush rule — and 30 years of ultra-right leadership — people have had enough of the fear, hopelessness, hate and discrimination that have dominated the political scene. Obama and Clinton have vowed to keep their focus on the Bush administration — where it ought to be.

Unity, on issues of racism and sexism and among the many anti-Bush constituencies, has to be consciously built. It’s not a given that people who have overlapping economic, political and social interests — like good jobs, equality, peace and health care for all — will realize what they have in common. Unity across race, gender and generations — unity of every kind — is a necessary force to defeat the ultra-right corporate agenda and make progress for the people.

Let’s keep our eyes on the prize.

Labor returns to Memphis for King Day

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:40:00 +0000

Making the ‘dream’ a reality

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Union members from across the U.S. are gathering here Jan. 17-21 for labor’s annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the history-making Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. King was assassinated here in 1968 while supporting the striking workers’ stand for dignity and union rights.

The gathering is far more than a commemoration, however. Trade unionists are holding intensive training sessions during the weekend, to prepare for unprecedented involvement in the 2008 elections. The AFL-CIO, which sponsored the event, is planning the most massive entrance into election campaigns ever by the nation’s unions.

Elections and the ‘dream’

“The courageous strike by the Memphis sanitation workers and the assassination of Dr. King when he came here to support them give us much to commemorate and reflect upon,” said Clayola Brown vice president of Unite Here and president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Brown chairs the Martin Luther King Labor Committee, which organized the gathering.

“This will be our point of departure into the election battles,” Brown said, “because full realization of Dr. King’s dream is not possible without big changes in our government. Only then will we be able to fight not just for civil rights but to protect jobs, to win the ability to form unions, to win peace and justice and to save the environment.”

The activities culminate Jan. 21 in a march through the streets of Memphis. Tens of thousand of unionists are expected to be joined by allies in the civil rights, social justice and peace movements.

Brown said the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike was “a valiant strike of men who dared to take a stand for dignity and respect on the job.” It was also Dr. King’s final campaign, she noted. This year in Memphis, she said, the labor movement would “join with our allies at the observance to advance the agenda for civil and workers’ rights and to carry on Dr. King’s legacy.”

Building union leadership diversity

The 40th anniversary commemoration comes as the union movement, particularly the AFL-CIO, continues to wrestle with how to implement the diversity agenda its convention approved in 2005. The agenda, known as Resolution #2, set a goal of having union leadership reflect the composition of the membership in representation of women, people of color and diversity of sexual orientation.

The AFL-CIO’s executive council has taken steps in this regard. Arlene Holt Baker, an African American woman, is now executive vice president. She replaces Linda Chavez Thompson, the first Latina to hold that position.

Four diversity summits last year drew 700 unionists from 33 unions, 20 state labor federations and 26 central labor councils. The summits showed the labor movement is still far from that goal, says a recent report by the federation’s Civil and Human Rights Department.

The report said there was general agreement among summit attendees that diversity was not only the right thing to do but also necessary if labor wants to make sure the union movement is strong. But the majority said they had not heard about Resolution #2 or the mandates the resolution imposed on their national unions or state and local labor bodies, the report added.

Participants said that getting information to members at local and regional levels was the only way to ensure implementation. They urged all national unions to get copies of Resolution #2 to their locals and regional bodies, and put them on web sites and in publications.

Recruitment and training

Summit participants said the union movement faces two problems: recruiting and training more women and minorities for leadership posts, and recruiting and training more young people. They advocated creating mentors, and appointing as well as electing women, minorities and younger unionists to leadership posts to give them experience and training.

Some unions have started to implement those ideas, the report said. In one case, an African American woman trade unionist, Charlotte Flowers, formed a slate at her American Federation of Government Employees local in Alabama, with an African American man as her running mate, to combat closed attitudes of the all-male leadership against women and minorities. They ran for office, and won.

The Chicago Federation of Labor realized that recruiting women and minorities for union leadership roles has to start even before they join the union — in this case by working to ensure women and minorities get the technical training needed for today’s modernized (and unionized) factories.

Unions reach out to youth of color

CFL Secretary-Treasurer Jorge Ramirez told summit participants that in coming years 70 percent of factory workers would retire, giving minorities an opportunity to enter manufacturing. So the CFL formed a partnership with business and the city to create a new technical factory-skills-oriented high school and to establish union-run pre-apprenticeship programs, he added. Austin Poly Tech was intentionally built in an African American neighborhood to help students of color get ready for these highly skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector, Ramirez added.

Despite these and other diversity efforts, the union movement still puts up “challenges and barriers to inclusion,” the AFL-CIO report said.

Diversity summit participants “acknowledged problems continue and that all union members are not included fully in the leadership and life of our unions and union structures,” the report concluded.

Mark Gruenberg from PAI news service contributed to this article.

Banks bilk homebuyers, cities say

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:37:00 +0000

Black, Latino families hit hardest

BALTIMORE — Mayor Sheila Dixon has filed a lawsuit charging Wells Fargo bank with targeting African American homebuyers for subprime loans. The groundbreaking initiative has thrown a spotlight on discriminatory lending across the nation in violation of federal law.

Dixon’s suit, filed Jan. 9, was followed a few days later by a lawsuit filed by the city of Cleveland against 21 banks, including Wells Fargo, charging “reverse redlining,” in which Black and Latino home buyers are pressured to accept unpayable loans.

Cleveland is described as the “epicenter” of subprime foreclosures, with 17,000 vacant, foreclosed homes. The city expects 8,000 foreclosures in 2008.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson accused the banks of knowingly luring people into mortgages with impossible payments. “The money was too good,” he said. The banks “were living large off the misery and suffering of people.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of RainbowPUSH, called for a massive march on the Department of Housing and Urban Development Jan. 22 to force President Bush to address the foreclosure crisis in his State of the Union message that night.

“We need to take mass action for mass results,” Jackson told a Washington news conference Jan. 15.

Predatory lending has unleashed a flood of foreclosures in a housing collapse that is pushing the economy toward recession. The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report last November predicting that 1.4 million homes will be foreclosed in 2008, with a combined market value of $316 billion.

Homeowners will lose $1.2 trillion in equity, and the 10 hardest hit states will lose an aggregate $6.6 billion in tax revenues, the report warned.

Since 2000, more than 33,000 Baltimore homes have been foreclosed. Wells Fargo, the city’s second largest mortgage lender, made 1,285 loans a year since 2004, totaling more than $600 million. Two-thirds of Wells Fargo foreclosures were in Baltimore census tracts with 60 percent African American population.

Rose Taylor, a Baltimore housing activist who years ago lost her home in foreclosure, told the World, “This crisis is devastating for working class people. We pull together the money to purchase a home. Predatory lenders then take our property in outrageous foreclosures. We need a moratorium on foreclosures. Shelter is a basic human right.”

President Bush assigned the banking industry to write his plan for dealing with the crisis. Only those whose mortgage payments are current will be assisted. Those behind in their payments are on their own.

Public interest lawyer Matthew Lee, author of “Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance,” published by Inner City Press in 2003, told the World, “The fact that cities like Baltimore and Cleveland are taking legal action against predatory lending shows that the federal government has been asleep at the switch.”

The Federal Reserve and other federal regulators, Lee said, “have known about these practices for years and did nothing. Whole blocks of our cities are vacant and abandoned because of these practices.”

The publisher’s web site includes a “Wells Fargo Watch,” featuring hundreds of complaints by Wells Fargo customers of being bilked by the San Francisco-based bank, fifth largest in the nation.

Wells Fargo bought out Island Finance, a mortgage bank based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has spread its predatory loan business to Aruba, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Panama, the web site reveals. CEO Richard Kovacevich bragged that Wells Fargo is the “number one NAFTA bank, with more banking stores and assets than any competitor within 60 miles of Mexico and Canada.”

Wells Fargo violated the Service Members Civil Relief Act, which requires banks to reduce mortgage interest rates for military personnel. One soldier filed a complaint with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), saying that he informed Wells Fargo just before he was deployed to Iraq in January 2003 that the interest on his two home equity loans should be reduced to 6 percent. “In mid-July when I returned to my residence from the Persian Gulf, I learned from my wife that Wells Fargo never reduced our interest rate to 6 percent as required by law,” he wrote.

The United Steelworkers put up picket lines at Wells Fargo banks to protest their bankrolling of Oregon Steel/CF&I in its five-year drive to bust the union at its Pueblo, Colo. steel mill a few years ago. The workers ultimately won that fight.

Wells Fargo is donating $250,000 to fund the Republican convention in Minneapolis later this year.

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com