Wells Fargo foreclosure fighters: They’re baaaack!:  A group of activists focused on organizing against Bay Area foreclosures will return to Wells Fargo’s San Francisco headquarters today for a protest timed to coincide with the banking giant’s shareholders’ meeting – even though the meeting was moved to Salt Lake City, Utah this year. (Perhaps the change of scenery had something to do with what happened last year, or the year before?)
From San Francisco Bay Guardian

Protesters Target Wells Fargo Shareholder Meeting in Utah: For the first time in about 15 years, banking giant Wells Fargo held its shareholders meeting away from its headquarter city of San Francisco, gathering Tuesday under a heavy security presence at The Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.
From The Salt Lake Tribune

Shareholder season is upon us, marking the beginning of another round of corporate America’s dog-and-pony shows held to placate their cronies and pat each other on the back for another profitable year. As corporations continue to bankrupt our economy on the backs of hardworking Americans, advocates and activists have taken on a new tactic of targeting these sham shareholder meetings; we’ve been invading those corporate charades in order to get our voices heard. And how have big corporate entities responded? They reacted just like so many criminals have when they’re exposed.

They ran.

They ran for the shelter of Salt Lake City and Boise, where they could hold their annual meetings without the interruptions from the loud, organized communities in metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco. Today, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, US Bank, Peabody Coal and other corporations are attempting to hide in boardrooms in smaller towns across the country, hoping to minimize the access and attention of the homeowners, students, and everyday Americans their policies exploit. It seems to be part of a larger strategy to wait us out: hoping that once the economy improves and people get back to work, our nation will forget about holding corporations accountable for the irrevocable damage they’ve done to our economy.

Unfortunately, the economy hasn’t improved for anyone but CEOs and the one percent, and our strategic collaboration of 99% power groups has only just kicked off its long-term plan to counter the undue influence that the 1% exert on our economy and our democracy.

Expanding on the space opened by the Occupy movement, 99% Power is working to define the one percent by naming names, and identifying executives like John Stumpf, Rob Walton, Brian Moynihan, and Albert Lord who prioritize their own bank account balances on the backs of our families. Starting this month as shareholder season gets underway, we’ll take on the biggest offenders, responding to increased public outrage over soaring corporate profits and dwindling paychecks for workers.

First, homeowners and students facing crushing interest rates will join the Wells Fargo shareholders at their meeting in Utah. Then, Walmart workers battling inconsistent scheduling and retaliation for speaking out will deliver letters demanding full-time employment to store management in several cities. Then they’ll head to the company’s big meeting in Arkansas later this year. And next month, students facing crippling loan burdens will take their case to Delaware and the shareholders of the nation’s largest private student loan processor – Sallie Mae – just after the first anniversary of student debt topping $1 trillion.

But this year, in addition to targeting bad actors individually, the 99% Power movement will shed light on the billions of dollars these companies and their executives pour into political advocacy to protect the tax loopholes and interest rate windfalls helping them expand their wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

But we say no more. The 1% can run, but they can’t hide. The 99% and everyone working together in the 99% Power movement will continue to confront corporate power directly and hold the one percent accountable for the havoc they’ve wreaked on the economy. Join us as we work to rebuild an economy where working people, students and families have the opportunity to earn a seat at the table.

Last year, US Bank held its annual shareholders meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of its corporate headquarters. The event was dominated by shareholders and proxies who are members of Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, an alliance of community, faith and labor organizations working for a more equitable economy.

“Our members asked CEO Richard Davis direct questions about issues like principal reductions and foreclosures, and payday lending,” said Eric Fought, communications director of the organization. “We were really effective in holding them accountable, so this year they looked for another solution—to hide from us.”

On Tuesday, April 16, US Bank officers will jet from their hometown to hold this year’s meeting in Boise, Idaho. If the bankers are hoping for a better reception in this reddest of states, or that activists will take a pass on the long distance travel required to get there, then Martha and the Vandellas have a word of advice:Got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.

More than 100 members of the Idaho Community Action Network (ICAN)—who are mostly rural, working poor and seniors—will travel to take direct, non-violent action both inside and outside of the meeting. More than half of these individuals will be driving 3 to 7 hours to reach the venue. Their allies from Minnesotans for a Fair Economy will be there to greet them, along with workers from SEIU Local 503—the largest union in Oregon with 54,000 members.

“People are so excited that Minneapolis and Oregon are coming to support this effort,” said ICAN executive director Terri Sterling. “It helps our membership, it helps motivate them.”

Among the issues on the agenda: a call for US Bank to pay its fair share in taxes; write-down mortgages to help stem the foreclosure and underwater mortgage crisis; and end payday loans with exorbitant interest rates. These issues are of concern, of course, not only to the activists from these three states, but also to people across the country.

“Almost anywhere the banks go in the country—they will find out as they try to hide away at their meetings—there will be a set of groups agreeing that the role of banks in the economy and politics of the country is damaging,” said labor organizer Stephen Lerner, who created the Justice for Janitors campaign and is now working on Wall Street accountability campaigns.

Sterling says that even in a state like Idaho she hasn’t “found one person—red, blue, or tea party—that likes big banks.”

Idaho has the highest share of minimum wage workers in the country, and for every job opening that pays a living wage for a family of three, there are 32 job seekers. According to LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society, a national coalition of eight state-based community organizations (including ICAN), 4,400 families lost their homes to foreclosure in 2012. Today, 22 percent of all mortgage holders in the state are “underwater,” owning more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. In Canyon County, where approximately 12 percent of Idaho’s population resides, 66 percent of homeowners are underwater—one of the highest rates in the nation.

“Our members are doing multiple jobs to make ends meet, and often times not making ends meet,” said Hall. “As a result they are losing their homes, or using payday loans to stretch and meet their family obligations—to their detriment.”

US Bank calls its payday loan product a “checking account advance,” and it has an annual percentage rate (APR) of up to 365 percent. It also helps finance some of the largest payday loan companies in the country, including Advance America, Cash America and EZ Corp. These “easy money” businesses cluster around low-income communities and communities of color.

Sterling spoke about ICAN member Miranda Davis who was disabled at 19 but as a single mother of two kids still “works to make ends meet.” When her car broke down, she used her utility money to repair it so she could commute to work—and then she took out a $300 payday loan to cover her utility bill. She was only able to pay back the $75 per month interest, and eventually needed another $300 loan.

“She’s now paying nearly $200 per month in interest alone,” said Sterling. “She can work as hard as she can and she won’t ever make enough money to pay off those loans.”

ICAN and Minnesotans for a Fair Economy have been pushing for a 36 percent cap in their states—the same one mandated by the federal government for members of the military and their families. Arizona, Montana and Oregon have also adopted a 36 percent cap on all payday loans.

“If they’re gonna set up a bank in my community, then by golly they should provide me with a short-term, fair lending product that’s less than 36 percent,” said Sterling.

While payday loans and overdraft fees are trapping low-income people in cycles of debt, foreclosures are draining wealth from entire communities.

Activists will speak at the US Bank shareholders meeting about their own experiences with unnecessary, unfair and too often illegal foreclosures. Fought said that last year there was a “success” when homeowner Monique White approached CEO Davis after the shareholders meeting, told him her story, and was then able to get a modification to remain in her home.

But with more than 141,000 foreclosures in the state since 2008, 100,000 homeowners still underwater, lost home value of over $20 billion, and a cost to local governments of $1.5 billion to maintain vacant, bank-owned properties—Fought says these individual successes are hardly enough.

“We want broad solutions,” said Fought. “We know principal reductions to fair market value can solve this. We want to continue to dialogue with US Bank, but it’s been two years now—it’s time to make the solutions a reality.”

Hall said that reducing mortgages to fair market value would save Idaho families over $290 million annually in mortgage payments—money that would be spent in the community and create jobs.

“US Bank is draining resources out of families’ pockets and Idaho’s economy as a whole,” said Hall.

SEIU Local 503 is currently at the bargaining table trying to bring some of those lost resources back to Oregon. Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber is pressing for cuts in the pension fund to make up for resources that vanished in the economic meltdown. But the union estimates that Wall Street lost as much as $300 million through fraud and unethical behavior, and that they should be targeted for investigation and repayment, rather than retirees paying for Wall Street’s misdeeds. The state has $150 million to $180 million in pending lawsuits against some of these firms but the union says “that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Fought said that it is critical that US Bank paying its fair share of revenues in Minnesota as well—that a decade of “cuts only” budgets under former Governor Tim Pawlenty (current CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable) was “devastating for people.” He noted, for example, that the state has been forced to borrow money from school funding to pay for other bills. Meanwhile, US Bank actively lobbies for tax breaks and loopholes through the Minnesota Business Partnership.

“We need to ensure that we have adequate funding for education, health care and other human services, and because US Bank is based here, they have a unique responsibility,” said Fought. “The fact is if we want to be effective in our work for a better economy we have to look at the larger problem here—these banks are really destroying communities.”

The action in Boise is part of a broader and diverse movement that is renewing the focus on big banks and irresponsible corporate neighbors that prevent a more equitable economy. A week later, activists will be in Salt Lake City, where Wells Fargo will do its best to hide after holding its shareholder meeting last year in San Francisco. Bank of America and JPMorgan shareholder meetings are just around the corner, too. You can get involved here.

“There is a wonderful alignment developing between unions, community groups and groups focused on Wall Street accountability,” said Lerner. “Instead of having many separate fights on issues—on how to fund local government and public services, how to keep people in their homes, how to address money in politics—people are seeing that they are all connected because it’s the same giant banks at the center of so many crises.”

Corporations and the individuals who run them, the 1%, continue to get richer while homeowners, workers, and students fall deeper in debt. Wells Fargo, Walmart, Bank of America, and Sallie Mae are key examples of how the corporate 1% devastate our communities, lives, and the planet. Each of these companies are responsible for holding our communities in debt, driving down wages, profiting from growing inequality, corrupting our democracy, bankrupting our economy, and destroying the natural climate we live in.

We demand accountability from the corporations who are devastating the lives of homeowners, students, workers, our communities, and our planet.

It’s time to re-negotiate our debt.

During the week of April 22-26^th, 99% Power is calling for a week of action around the country, kicking off another year of challenging the economic and political power of the top 1% .

We are calling on you to organize actions, rallies or leafletting events, at the offices, distribution centers, or retail outlets of Wells Fargo, Walmart, Bank of America and Sallie Mae the week of April 22- 28 2013.

Sign up here to organize an action. 

April 23rd: The week of action will start by focusing on Wells Fargo while their shareholders meet in Salt Lake City, Utah. After thousands of families in foreclosure, student debtors and others marched on Wells Fargo’s San Francisco shareholders meetings three years in a row, Wells Fargo decided to “run for the hills,” moving their annual meeting to Salt Lake City in an effort to hide from their customers and community …during Earth Week!  Wells Fargo had its most profitable year ever in 2012, while they’ve sent the rest of us deeper and deeper into debt.

Demand that Wells Fargo:

• Reduce mortgage principal for struggling homeowners, (when legal to do so)
• Report foreclosures and modifications with principal reduction by race and income
• Stop all foreclosures and evictions until these two policies are in place

On April 23^rd, join 99% Power in Salt Lake City at the shareholders meeting or organize your own action locally at a Wells-Fargo branch. 

Walmart

April 24th: Take action to support workers’ rights at the world’s largest retailer. Thousands of Walmart workers receive less than the 40 hours they want and need to make ends meet, regardless of if they are considered part or full time employees. Their schedules are often inconsistent, varying in the number of hours they get, as well as the shifts they are required to work. This makes budgeting nearly impossible and limits workers’ ability to go to school or find a second supplemental job.

Demand that Walmart:

• Establish transparency in scheduling shifts, increasing the number of full time hours and making it easier for workers to find additional employment so they are not stuck in poverty
• Discipline managers who retaliate against workers who speak out for dignity and respect

On April 24^th, plan a visit to a local Walmart and deliver THIS LETTER to the store manager, leaflet customers with this FLYER and talk to workers to let them know about Walmart’s promise of transparency and open scheduling.  Hand them this CARD.  (Full Action Guide available here)

Sallie Mae

April 25th: Bankers will be popping champagne bottles as they celebrate the one year anniversary of student debt toppling the $1 trillion mark that has become a drag on our entire economy. Two-thirds of students walk across the graduation stage with a diploma in one hand and a bill in the other, at an average of $27,000. Recent graduates trying to pay off their loans are struggling to stay afloat: 20% are behind on monthly payments.

This year, students will be having a party of their own though – inside the Wells Fargo shareholder meeting on April 23^rd and across the country on April 25^th – demanding banks come to the table to negotiate debt reduction.

On April 25th, tell your financial aid office that Sallie Mae shouldn’t be listed as an alternative on their website and that the school must stop promoting their predatory practices.  If you are no longer a student, tell the CFPB to regulate all banks that are profiting off of students. The CFPB is allowing anyone to comment on which banks they should regulate until May 28th: send your comment in today!  

Started in Spring 2012 with a series of actions around corporate shareholder season, the 99% Power coalition—workers and retirees, families fighting foreclosure and the unemployed, students, immigrants and environmentalists—united to build an economy and a democracy that works for all us, not just for the 1%.

Thousands of people took action inside and outside more than three-dozen corporate shareholder meetings across the country, including Wells Fargo, GE, Verizon, Sallie Mae, Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Verizon and more.  We directly faced and challenged the 1% board members and executives that have only served to expand inequality, threaten democracy, destroy our environment and have put their desire for profit in direct conflict with the survival of families and communities.

99% Power mobilized well over 10,000 people, from all walks of life and representing the diversity of the 99%, to engage in nonviolent direct action.  All told, there were more demonstrations connected to corporate shareholder meetings than at any point in American history. Together we fight to build a political and economic system that offers equal opportunity for all.

Tomorrow Walmart is hosting their giant annual meeting in Arkansas to plot the next moves for the world’s biggest retailer.

Chances are high Walmart will pledge higher salaries for top executives, keep paying their associates incredibly low wages, and set course for spreading more big box, scandal-ridden, community-destroying stores across the planet.

The 99% will be standing up to Walmart’s unbelievable greed in the streets of Fayetteville — but we also want to help paint a picture of the world we want. So we’re asking folks to use this Friday to shout-out your favorite local business on Twitter.

What stores give you delight, provide jobs, and strengthen your local economy? What coffee shops, book store, auto-mechanic, dance club, burrito-maker do you just love–and wish your friends would check out? 

Tomorrow: please take a moment to shout-out your favorite local businesses. Just add #FF as well as the hashtags #NotWalmart and #99Power. And if you can fit it: #WMTshares

For example: you might tweet:

Today is Walmart’s Shareholder Mtg, so I’m shouting out my fav local businesses. #FF: @_______ @_______ @______ #NotWalmart #99Power

What’s #FollowFriday? It’s a Twitter tradition of using Fridays to recommended your favorite accounts on Twitter — and encourage your other friends to follow them too.

Thanks so much for giving this a whirl! We saw this morning that 99% pressure is making a real difference — when Walmart withdrew from ALEC. SO let’s make tomorrow HUGE, as we build up our communities and keep the heat in the streets.

Send us your tweets to @the99power and we’ll try to retweet you!

Via AlignNY -- the 99% takes to the streets against WalmartThe Walmart 1 Percent Has Tough Week as Company Shareholder Meeting Nears

Read original post here

As Walmart prepares for its shareholder meeting next Friday, June 1, several members of the Walmart 1 Percent were confronted this week by Walmart workers and their allies. Members of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) visited Walmart US CEO Bill Simon, Walmart Board Member Michele Burns, and Walmart Board Nominee Marissa Mayer.

Walmart board member Michele Burns spent the day in Jersey City, NJ, at the Goldman Sachs annual meeting. Burns, no stranger to controversy, is on the boards of both of these scandal-ridden companies. She served on the Walmart board’s audit committee in 2005 and 2006, when the company was reportedly grappling with knowledge of the bribery scandal in Mexico. Last week, proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders vote against seven of Walmart’s board members, including Michele Burns, at the company’s annual meeting June 1.

So it’s no surprise that Burns was greeted by community members, including ALIGN NY, concerned about Walmart’s practices outside Goldman’s meeting today.

Inside, Burns faced tough questions about her roles at Goldman and Walmart. The New York Timesreports:

Several shareholders spoke, objecting to Goldman’s decision to have Michele Burns lead the board’s audit committee. One shareholder pointed out that she was on Wal-Mart’s audit committee in 2005 and 2006, when the retailer is said to have bribed officials in Mexico. He said having her lead Goldman’s audit committee “sends the wrong message to shareholders.”

Marissa Mayer invited to hang out with Walmart Associates

Newly nominated Walmart Board member Marissa Mayer also had a visit Wednesday from Walmart workers and allies on Wednesday. OUR Walmart members delivered a cake to Ms. Mayer, along with an invitation, asking her to join a Google+ Hangout.

The invitation read, in part:

@MarissaMayer

Check your hair and make sure your mic works! Walmart associates want to hang out!

Walmart associates with Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart – forrespect.org) are excited to learn about your nomination to Walmart’s Board of Directors. As an executive at Google, your company has been called the best company to work for in America. Now, that’s decidedly “not evil.”

When you join Walmart’s BOD, you’ll find yourself overseeing a company with a very different – and less appealing – work culture. (Seriously, Google it.) We’d like to hang out and discuss our ideas for how you can help Walmart create the type of positive work environment you created at Google – a workplace culture that respects and values associates…

We’re working hard to make Walmart a better company and a better employer. We know that your likely election to the Board of Directors will signal a new moment for the company – one in which our voices as workers, consumers and communities can be truly heard and one in which real accountability and oversight become more than buzzwords.

What better way for us to meet you and to exchange ideas than a Google+ Hangout?! We look forward to hanging out soon.

More tough questions in Boston

Finally, Walmart US CEO Bill Simon spoke at a Morgan Stanley sponsored investor conference on Wednesday in Boston. Although company security was quick to usher her out, an activist at Making Change at Walmart was able to get a question out to Mr. Simon. Her question:

In the wake of the Mexico bribery allegations, recent statements by major pension funds and investor advisory services seem to signal an emerging crisis of con¬fidence in the current leadership of Walmart. In addition, the company’s recent disclosures suggest that corruption problems may extend beyond Mexico.

How can you assure shareholders that Walmart will conduct an adequate internal investigation, given apparent conflicts of interest on the present Board:

1)The current and prior CEO, both of whom sit on the Board, have been implicated in the scandal?

2) Other current Board members were on the Audit Committee in 2005 and 2006 when the scandal came to light internally.

3) Two other current Board members are related to the Chairman?

It’s been a busy week! With lots more to come in the weeks and months ahead.

By Amy Martinez

Seattle Times business reporter

Amazon.com, addressing issues that have drawn heavy criticism of the company, told shareholders Thursday that it planned to improve warehouse conditions and drop its membership in a conservative public-policy organization.

More than 100 protesters rallied outside the company’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday at the Seattle Art Museum, calling on the Seattle Internet retailer to pay more taxes, treat its workers better and drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

During the meeting, Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said the company will spend $52 million this year retrofitting its warehouses with air conditioning. Amazon has come under heavy criticism for conditions at its warehouses after a Pennsylvania newspaper revealed that employees were forced to work in temperatures above 100 degrees last summer.

In response to a shareholder’s question, general counsel Michelle Wilson said Amazon has decided not to renew its membership in the nonprofit ALEC.

“This year, we’ve decided not to renew with ALEC, and it’s because of positions they’ve taken not related to our business,” Wilson said.

Before the meeting, shareholders were ushered through metal detectors under a white tent outside the museum.

Protesters came from as far as Spokane and Medford, Ore., to attend the rally, which was organized by Renton-based labor group Working Washington.

“This is part of a national effort to go after some of the worst corporate tax dodgers,” said John Sellers, 45, of Vashon Island, also citing Bank of America and General Electric. “It’s the American way to dodge taxes if you’re a corporation.”

Working Washington also said it wanted the company to treat its warehouse workers with respect and end its support of ALEC, which has been in the spotlight recently for its support of “Stand your ground” laws in various states, including Florida. The law is an issue in the controversy surrounding the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

The Amazon shareholders meeting drew about 200 people, twice as many as usual for the annual event.

Seattle police officers forcibly removed a handful of protesters at the end of the meeting after they stood in the aisles and shouted.

Bezos, on a darkened stage, then thanked the audience for coming. He left without taking questions from the media.