WALL STREET – Thousands of community activists and union members last week took to the streets here, as well as in San Francisco, Kansas City and Charlotte, N.C., home of Bank of America, to rally in support of pending legislation to reform the big banks’ methods of doing business.
And last week a grotesque life-sized figure created by Consumers Union called “Bankers Man” roamed Capitol Hill and gobbled up “unsuspecting citizens” (portrayed by actors) and ate them whole as executives of Goldman Sachs were testifying before Congress.
Several thousand protestors were carrying signs saying “Good Jobs Now,” “Hold Banks Accountable” and “Save Our Homes.” They chanted, “Main Street – Not Wall Street” as they rallied Thursday near New York’s City Hall, and then marched through the financial district to protest unemployment and the taxpayer-funded rescue of Wall Street and big banks. A few were dressed as pirates, some held cardboard caricatures of capitalists in top hats with the faces of pigs.
The demonstration was organized by community groups and the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor group, which is urging Congress to pass financial reform legislation and to create a government jobs program and to tax securities trades and bankers' bonuses to pay for it. Business groups oppose the tax, saying it would hurt the economy.
The rally ended at a symbol of Wall Street prosperity – the bronze bull a few blocks from the American Stock Exchange.
Earlier in the day, more than 100 protesters entered a building in midtown Manhattan where JP Morgan Chase has offices chanting, “Bust up big banks” and “People Power” before police escorted them outside. They then pushed into another building lobby nearby where Wells Fargo and Wachovia bank have offices.
Similar rallies were staged Tuesday in San Francisco in front of a Wells Fargo annual shareholder meeting and in Kansas City in front of a Bank of America. On Wednesday, in Charlotte, NC, a protest was held before a Bank of America shareholders meeting.
