Thursday, May 26, 2011

Teamsters protest M&I Bank in NYC



"Corporate plunderer" is probably what you'd call a bank that accepts bailout money, doesn't pay it all back and then has its executives contribute to Koch whore Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's political campaign.

That, at least, is what New York Teamsters and other union members thought about M&I Bank. When the bank moved its shareholders meeting from Milwaukee to New York on May 18, they were there protesting.

Here's Talking Union on the protest:
Instead of turning the bank around or paying back all of its $1.75 billion bailout it got from taxpayers in the fall of 2008, executives like M&I CEO Mark Furlong negotiated gigantic bonuses for themselves while at the same time investing in politicians like Scott Walker who stripped collective bargaining rights from workers who were used as scapegoats for the excesses and failures of bank executives like Mark Furlong.
The video begins with Madison, WI firefighters addressing the crowd of New York firefighters, construction workers, sheet metal workers, service workers, and public employees in front of the M&I shareholders’ meeting at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.
You'll recall the firefighters took their money out of a Madison M&I bank branch in March, and protesters forced it to shut its doors for the afternoon.