Corporations use bailout money to organize against Employee Free Choice Act
By John Amato Wednesday Jan 28, 2009 9:00amThese people have no shame. The Huffington Post is reporting that the CEO's who received billions of tax payer dollars to save their asses are using the money to organize a massive attempt to block the Employee Free Choice Act.
Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.
Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.
Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.
"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."
This is outrageous. It's bad enough to see these Bozos still try and buy private jets and hand out massive bonuses with our money, but to actively attack labor with it should be a criminal offense.
As you've seen so far, the Employee Free Choice Act is making right-wing heads explode because it places the choice of how to form a union in the hands of the workers and takes it away from big business. But I really didn't think they would take this money and use it for this purpose. The Huffington Post has audio of the calls. Reading some of what was said was infuriating.
You'll always notice that whenever most reporters mention EFCA, they call it by the right-wing name for it. Just for fun: If you drop the phrase "Card Check" in passing you'll get an angry reaction from most right-wingers and many of them don't even know why. And Bank of America has a personal vendetta going on with the SEIU now, so it's not a surprise they hosted the call.
Not only are some of the most non-trusted companies in America blatantly trying to buy off Congress, but they're using our bailout money to do it. Enough!
If there was ever a time to join Change Congress's political "donor strike" in support of fundamental campaign finance reform, this is it.
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They keep up with the bullshit. They're gonna find out what a peoples uprising is all about...
guillotines are very quick and they serve (or sever??) as a good crowd pleaser.
But I'm all for some good old fashioned hangins...after a fair and speedy trial of course.
Any other country these people would be ripped to pieces, and their families exiled.
Fuck these motherfuckin greedy fucks.
guidelines for Saudi courts. No mercy.
Corporate America shows you mercy?
Or reference anything you quaint New World xenophobes refer to as America? Corporate America? Never met him.
Or her.
BofA has been a crappy company to work for ever since the merger with Nations Bank. I worked for them both before and after the merger and the attitude the Nations Bank management brought in was that workers were a neccessary evil and the less money they could spend on them the better. They were in the process of moving the entire IT dept to India when I left in 2004.
They're so bad. Tell everyone performance reviews determine who gets laid off first if layoffs happen. Then layoff time comes and they fire the people who make the most.
Also I think in a true example of how bad they are, speaking of moving the IT to india, at the beginning of that year they promised one of the IT depts they wouldn't be outsourcing. Then at the end of the year as they moved the jobs to India, they claimed that they had actually opened their own office in India, so technically it wasn't outsourcing since the people in India did work for the bank.
There is no room for shame in the class war. Just because the world economy has been ground to a standstill by the greed and avarice of the hedge funds and futures traders doesn't mean it's time to go easy on the working class. This is just a great opportunity to crush them once and for all.
Let's face it, many of our CEOs are sociopaths, psychopaths - whatever term you prefer. They have no conscience. My sister didn't get a raise from her bank/employer this year (or last year). But management is still taking their ski vacation together. Also for keeping expenses down (not making money), management will award themselves bonuses.
Corporatism gives these scumbags an outlet to satisfy their urge of spreading misery. I used to work at Wal-Mart here in MN, and as soon as you come in for orientation the union busting begins. I'm really pissed though that they get to use our tax money for this purpose. The government better step up and work for the people on this one.
One of the many reasons I opposed it.
It is no accident that Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke pushed it but what really annoys me is Nanny "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi and Barney Frank knocked each other down to vote for it.
We need better leadership in the House and the Senate.
has been referring to the Obama economic stimulus package as the "Destroy Capitalism Package".
Talk about having no shame!
It's like loaning three people money to play poker against me.
No matter what happens; I can't win.
bernie "this is the demise of a civilization" marcus is quite the chicken-little.
the demise of civilization? does bernie believe that collective bargaining rights is the same as anarchy? what a moron.
like wal mart, i never shop at right wing depot--b/c every dollar spent there furthers the right wing's cause.
marcus is afraid of his own employees.
somewhere a rail leading out of town is longing for marcus' ass.
I'm surprised that anybody is surprised by their actions. What would be surprising is if this kind of stuff got reported on outside the liberal blogs.
Kudos to regular media, though, for reporting on the corporate jet purchase yesterday.
Give out money from the ground up. In Australia all low income families, pensioners, carers, disabled and the like all got a Xmas bonus of around 1400 bucks each. The idea was for them to spend it and stimulate the economy. I got it and of course I spent it. I suggest the stimulus package should be given to means tested low income citizens and see them spend it first instead of handing it over to psychopaths and evil criminals. These people have to be swiftly brough to justice before any more money is handed out.
Pretty much the same thing to Gwen Ifill last night.
Newspapers, banks, etc...do not like unions. They never have, never will. What galls them the most is having to contribute the employers share of Social Security, etc...
NOW do you see the evil bastards we are up against?
You may think bi-partisanship is great but the Republicans and the media and the money people are determined to destroy your Presidency.
It is time to use the bully pulpit, nationalize the banks, use the profits for people in need and quit trying to suck up to them.
We didn't elect you to make nice with the people who have gutted our economy. You have shown by trying to include them in planning that they are traitors to this country. Now go do what we elected you for - WE THE PEOPLE!
Umm. In case you didn't notice, the corporations and special interests, and AIPAC won the last election. Obama's their proxy pres.
please don't state the obvious, the masses still think we live in a Constitutional Republic.
because that's what they were taught in school, and they get a vote.
we are all "the masses". THEY were taught at school? We are all they. We are all in this together.
that the only thing on his plate is bitching.
To chicken to to do anything else. Most people don't even fucking vote. So let's see you mobilize around your putrid ideas which amount to zilch.
probably right but I haven't come around to that way of thinking yet because it is so hard to see and endure another dream crushed under the heel of capitalism on crack.
I'm going to cut him a little more slack but I can't hang around forever believing and having my heart broken over and over.
And I've given all I will ever give to any candidate. Never again.
n/t
let's go fishing! Bring your own worms. ; )
Fishing is Zen!
I've spent half of my life fishing, as a hobby, for sustanance, as a job, and I never saw it that way but you are right! Sun, wind, the spray of water, birds cry, and then the absolute oneness with nature. I guess that is Zen if anything is.
And, as one of my fav bumper stickers says..."A bad day fishin is better than a good day at work!"
and thousands upon thousands of rich remain uneaten.
Guantanamo not only remains open, it has not been returned to the Cubans. People still pray openly to cloud gods, and the masses still think. Who the f..k, f..k. f..kety f..k killed Kennedy and why is the godd..n TARP over my plants not transparent so the light can keep them healthy.
you noticed that, too...
... it won't be because teh libruls are making us be socialists.
It will be because of the greed of executives who now believe million-dollar bonuses are appropriate to their 'performance.' (Fact is, if your company went bankrupt, why aren't you forfeiting money as a penalty for crappy performance, or forgoing your precious bonuses?)
And we're seeing that corporations, in receipt of federal bailout monies, are not taking corrective steps, but continuing with the same antics that torpedoed their companies to begin with. But, of course, it's those darned liberals who are to blame.
On a tangent, it's probably a good thing that Bush's 'faith-based' nonsense didn't get very far, because we'd see the same thing: evangelical ministries taking our tax dollars to wage campaigns of hatred, greed, and bigotry, while purporting to do nothing but good.
sold his $14 Million home to his wife for $100 dollars.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTR...
These people will force us into dire consequences.
We the people give them money to help us, and instead they turn around and use it to hurt us, and end up giving some of the money back to the political noise machine.
Oh Yeah, I am very piss!
Big 3 took the bailout money, now suing to prevent govt from enacting higher emissions standards.
I don't understand how we didn't get all we wanted from these companies in exchange for our money.
b/c the vast majority of elected officials, in doing the bidding of the corporatocracy, ensured that we wouldn't "get all we wanted from these companies"...
Torches and motherfuckin pitchforks time.
Show them what a pissed off citizenry looks like up close and personal.
... do what the Joker did in Dark Knight. Burn all their money while they watch, and then feed them to the dogs.
And spread it out evenly to US.
THEN we feed them to the dawgs.
I've seen some comments and the companies in question defend these expenditures stating that it isn't the bail out dollars that are being spent.
If my dad gave me an allowance of $50. And I take $50 out of my savings to buy a bag of pot. Can I honestly say I didn't use his money to buy the pot?
Who cares how the money is allocated on a spreadsheet. The fact is they are taking money from the govt while decrying the death of capitalism. If they're so damned concerned about the free market, they shouldn't have taken the money.
stating the obvious-- the wall street barons, the financial overlords, and corporate thugs hide behind the rhetoric of "free market" while, at the same time, using their power and influence to skew the market upwards.
the only concern they have about the "free" market is its existence.
Free market to the corporatocracy means only free to do what they want, and free to get away with it.
curtilingus's question. The answer is no. But if you were a good American you would have sold some of the pot you bought at a profit and quit being Father dependent in the future.
Ricky you are so courageous. And imaginative. It takes both to turn a hypothetical question into criticism of the person posing it.
you're my proxy hero!
After a few days of ultra-annoying posts, I got fed up.
"Fuck these motherfuckin greedy fucks." are why I cannot ignore liberNmoderation despite all the names he calls me.
We consistently provide an example as good as any other of liberals turning on themselves before they can get organized enough to do damage to the opposition.
Repub followers may truly be like the mouth-breathing glassy-eyed stereotype of our dreams but they do actually follow (this last election notwithstanding ;)
Hi Blue! Can you tell me where in my comment I was not unified with the others in the liberal cause? Was it the original comment I made that was an analogy or the oblique personal attack I responded to from sticky?
Otherwise I think I see your point and agree. There are some that will take a devil's advocate position or a position contrary to what the majority of comments believe in, and then there are others who are just looking for confrontation and are in the personal attack mode by their second or third comment of the thread.
I wasn't referring to you specifically so much as the general bickering exemplified by ricky and lNm. My larger point is only that we spend more time picking on each other than doing anything resembling concrete action . . at our own peril, I'm afraid.
And now I'm guilty of exactly that of which I speak!
has a special punishment reserved for you:
"Any other country these people would be ripped to pieces, and their families exiled.
Fuck these motherfuckin greedy fucks."
Hard to bicker with that kind of logic.
What're you talking about? I answered! You just don't have the guts to understand my response! >:P
Guess we are too serious to make a pot joke and everything has to be taken personally.
If it were decriminalized I'd say go-ahead.But it's still illegal.So your dad should not give you money that he earned to pay for your habit.Spend your own hard earned cash and deal with the consequences if you get arrested
200+ pounds of pot found during traffic stop
http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/pages/News/...
I think this calls for a boycott against Bank of America.
if we boycott them, they'll lose even more money, and end up getting MORE of our money through more bailouts.
But we can't just sit in front of our keyboards complainin about it...
Not sure exactly what we can do.
I mean...the individual branches aren't really culpable IMHO...it's the bigwigs in Charlotte that are to blame...
Those are the ones who need to pulled out from behind their fancy desks and have their fat-cat asses whupped like a rented mule.
Uprising, hanging, fucking, pitchforks and torching, and dawg feeding will have to suffice I guess. It's a sacrfice but I guess I can give up the boycott.
will always be with us as long as we equate money with free speech.
Write your congress critters ... now! The squeaky wheel gets the greese! Without yelling and screaming, nothing ever will get straightened out!
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
media silence stunning on who really killed MLK, Jr, according the Memphis trial and jury verdict.
Act of State, by William Pepper.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King Jr., Accepting Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 10, 1964
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)
Big Surprise that Bush handed his greedy Reslug buddies a free hand out in the fall.
Being a total simpleton, I can't help but feel that if the corporations would simply pay their workers a living wage instead of attempting to exploit them to the hilt in every manner possible, there would basically be no NEED for unions.
That said... I worked for a living for over 50 years. I never did and I still don't play idiotic stock market slot machine games. Anything I have I EARNED through the sweat of my own brow and the dirt under my fingernails.
I bitterly resent being drug into this bailout crap and forced to pay for the mistakes of people who did play stupid games with the parasites on Wall Street looking for a way to get something for nothing in the world's biggest Ponzi operation. They should have flipping known the deck was stacked against them.
To now have that money used in yet another assault on my class... which is the American working class... is an almost insufferable affront but by now, one of a type I've had ample time to get used to in my three score plus.
And Bernie Marcus really needs to get a grip. I've seen better acting and more convincing histrionics at my 6 year old grandson's school play.
we have to move from complaining and protesting against the corporatocracy and move towards urging and hurrying its demise. I'm ready to join the no-more-bailouts camp. It's gonna hurt either way so why not see a few more of these big boys get their come-uppance?
will fight this more than any other piece of legislation (save any future fight towards single payer universal health care, should we arrive at that point). If workers can join unions they won't only increase wages, they'll gain power within the work place, their class consciousness will change, they'll rethink a lot of issues and the conclusions will be likely to benefit progressives. This would be a huge ideological blow to the right wing. You don't pass this law then easily take it away. That is what the left should focus on this more than anything. It's impact will be far greater than a short term economic stimulus. It could be long lasting and would benefit left of center politicians for years to come. Maybe Obama is making some compromises now to save it for this fight? Or maybe Obama will compromise by not putting to much energy behind the bill. We'll see. He and his administration's comments seem to be all over the place regarding this legislation.
as to how many of the 50,000 people laid off Monday were union workers?
..where corruption becomes a terminal disease.
Bank of America, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, Rick Berman founder of Union Facts EXPOSED ON TAPE trying to Defeat The Employee Free Choice Act.
Audio of the conference call, which was obtained by the Huffington Post, is excerpted throughout this piece to provide a clearer insight into the pitched battle surrounding the Employee Free Choice legislation. ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/bank...
Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill. Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts.
At one point, another individual on the call suggested that participants send major contributions to Berman's organization as a way of affecting the election without violating the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. "Some organizations have written checks for $250,000, $500,000, some $2 million for this," said the man, likely Steven Hantler, the director of free enterprise and entrepreneurship at Bernie Marcus' Marcus Foundation.
Citing the massive war chests that unions have brought to the EFCA fight, Marcus asked participants to make campaign donations rather than lobbying payments.
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://www.FreeChoiceActNow.Org
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org
And not a WORD about this on our local news stations here in Atlanta (Home Depot hdqtrs) - these media corporate boot-lickers know where their bread is buttered. I know first hand, I worked for a local TV station here for 5 years - saying anything about the corporate slave masters on-air was strictly verboten. Fuck the lot of 'em. IMO they are as much to blame for the downfall of this country and the state we now find ourselves in as anyone.
Can anyone honestly say that Wall Street, corporations, and the wealthy are not waging class warfare against the working class? Wall Street is not ashamed of the poverty wages that are paid to the working class, the lack of affordable housing ,and health care. With the growing numbers of Americans losing their homes, their health care, and their jobs, the capitalists are not letting up in their assault on the poor and working class. They threaten us with the loss of our jobs, unless we give them what they demand. Well they are doing that anyway. We have to fight back against the greedy bastards on Wall Street, the banks, the corporate executives, and those that assist them in causing working people to live in poverty.
Needs to watch the following twice and then call me in the morning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
Anyone who realizes its a modern day kingdom/pyramid scheme/neo-feudalism at its finest...you should watch it as well...
AWESOME documentary - and very entertaining as well. I really liked the carpet guy (from S. Carolina, I believe) - who had an epiphany and saw the wrong in what he was doing to the planet and his comment on what we're leaving for the future of our children. That fellow should run for office...
Top All-Time Donors 1989-2008 Summary
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
Why aren't the middle, working and poor class angry about all of this???
The CEOs of these corporations received massive bailouts because they cried that if they didn't - millions of jobs (except their own) will be gone!
so taxpayer money (not their own) is given to them to spend on performance bonuses (for themselves), corporate jets (for themselves), spa holidays (for themselves) and they are still not content with this - now they use the bail out money to ATTACK WORKERS!!!
unfreakingbelievable!
Why aren't people on the streets demanding justice???
And how many people who have lost their jobs, their savings, their homes - because of these CEOs corruption and incompetence (supported by Bush and his Republican "greed is good" economic policies) - still support the Republican party???
Palin spewed that she was a regular joe, hockey mum, understood about a hard days work for a decent wage to put some dead moose on the dinner table - but her party's policies are PRO-EMPLOYER not PRO-EMPLOYEE!!!
What gets me angry as an Australian - is that the policies of the Bush administration AND the actions of a few greedy CEOs and Executives in the USA has caused worldwide recession and economic tsunamis!
And the Republican party at the moment are laughing when they see the Bush's TARP bail out being p1ssed away on bonuses, jets, rugs, spas etc BUT are screaming murder about Obama's proposed bail out which will stimulate the economy, create jobs and assist the neediest in these dire economic times!!!
So the Republicans - headed by the likes of McCain (the maverick LOL) are refusing to support Obama's stimulus package because it is a form of "socialism"!
Let's call a spade a spade - they won't support it because the majority of it will go to the workers, the neediest, the jobless, the homeless, the regular joe, the hockey mums etc.
And that would reduce the bridge between the haves and the havenots - and lead the USA towards becoming a communist country!!!
Mr Obama - stop trying to win the Republican approval for your proposals. You WON'T GET IT PERIOD!
Just tell Pelosi and Reid to put a sock in it and table the bill through the Senate and the House - WITHOUT amendments - and if it doesn't get passed - inform the American people who it was that stopped them getting economic assistance!
This should shame the Republicans - and maybe some Democrats - into voting differently the next time you introduce a bill!
the workforce of america has been steered into the "hive mentality" Just like ants or bees.They have forgotten how to think for themselves.It's easier to watch "Dancing with the Stars" rather than deal with reality.I know I see it everyday.So just call me pollyanarchist.
TRAITOR!!!!
Luckily the Amerikan public is to chicken shit to stand up for their rights. Luckily the Amerikan public likes to give their money to white collar thieves. Luckily the Amerikan people could care less about law, justice, and FREEDOM.
Home Depot into the ground where it belongs. They blantantly advertise on Rush Limbaugh. Support Lowes which does not!
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