Last week you saw SEIU protesters take over a bank in Stroudsburg, PA when they stormed a lobby in an effort to call out a CEO. Then you learned that a former (maybe) SEIU official hatched a secret plan to target JP Morgan Chase through massive loan defaults. Now we have video of United Auto Workers (UAW) protesters staging a rally outside a Bank of America in Detroit on Thursday. The gathering was so large it shut down the branch for 30 minutes.
Chants of "Money for schools, not for banks!" and "That's not right!" echoed throughout the street as UAW president Bob King accused the bank of not paying taxes:
MLive.com reporter Jonathan Oosting points out that King's railings may not be entirely accurate:
"In 2009, Bank of America made 4.4 billion dollars," he told the crowd. "Can you guess what they paid in taxes? Not a nickel."
Reports indicate Bank of America did not pay federal taxes in 2009 because it posted a net loss, not the profit King suggested, but critics argue the company is scheming the system. A spokesman told the Detroit Free Press the bank repaid all of it's $45 billion government bailout and paid more than $40 billion in taxes between 2000 and 2009.
The protest was part of the UAW's national convention. WXYZ-TV reports the convention hosted liberal stalwarts such as Danny Glover and Ed Schultz. It also captured one of the union's favorite chants:
The march even included a new, yet still unoriginal, chant:
It's unclear, as reader John B. says, why the union decries the bank bailout and yet is silent about that auto industry's own suckling from the government coffers. But at least one thing this past week was made clear (if it wasn't already) -- the unions are on a campaign against America's financial institutions.
