First Union Corp.'s already fragile reputation in Philadelphia has come under fire again, this time from police officers upset by a rock concert in an arena that bears the banking company's name but is otherwise unaffiliated with it.
The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police held a press conference Thursday calling for a citywide boycott of First Union. The request came days after the rock band Rage Against the Machine was allowed to play in the First Union Center, home of Philadelphia's professional hockey and basketball teams.
The police group also asked people not to patronize the arena or the concert promotion company that organized the show.
Rage Against the Machine has drawn national headlines in recent months because of its support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Mr. Abu-Jamal, who is on death row, still asserts his innocence. He claims he was found guilty only because the judge was biased against him.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has twice upheld his conviction. A federal court is currently considering an appeal.
Officials from the police group said in a statement that they met with arena representatives for more than three hours before the concert, urging them to cancel the show. After their efforts failed, they decided to boycott the businesses associated with the concert.
"So long as people continue to financially profit from the blood of a murdered cop, this message of violence will continue to spread," the statement said. "By supporting this boycott, you can help stop the marketing of hate for profit."
"Of course we are concerned about the opinions of our customers, but we can't influence the programming at the Center," said Natalie Pruett, a spokeswoman for First Union. "We hope our customers understand that." She added that the company is hopeful that the police group's campaign will not cause any significant further fallout.
This has been a tough year for First Union, especially in Philadelphia. The Charlotte, N.C., banking company has twice in 1999 advised analysts to cut earnings estimates, in large part because of troubles arising from the integration of CoreStates Financial Corp., Philadelphia's largest banking company before First Union bought it in 1998.
Thousands of jobs were either eliminated or relocated in that integration, and branches were closed or sold. Local opposition to the deal also did not help First Union's reputation. Community groups fought bitterly to extract local lending and investment concessions from First Union.
First Union acknowledged this summer that it had lost 19% of CoreStates' customers - who took 9% of CoreStates' deposits and 14% of its loans with them - during the integration process.
In response to this latest controversy, First Union released a statement saying the company owns only naming rights at the arena and "does not manage the operations" or "share directly in any of the revenue generated by events" there. The arena is owned and managed by Comcast-Spectacor, a unit of the Philadelphia-based cable company Comcast Corp. Comcast's local cable operations were not mentioned in the call for a boycott.
