Union Protest Interrupts Mortgage Bankers Summit

UPDATE - See below for a statement provided by the Pulte Group.

WASHINGTON -- About 200 union workers interrupted a meeting of mortgage bankers at a posh hotel Wednesday.

The protest -- aimed at the Pulte Group, one of the nation's largest homebuilders -- quickly turned into a scrum as workers wearing hardhats and shouting through bullhorns overwhelmed the security staff at the JW Marriott, bursting into a crowded conference room before a stunned crowd of bankers.

Shouting "Where are the jobs?" and "Where is the money?" the protesters from the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, many in overalls and helmets, said taxpayers have provided $900 million in tax breaks to Pulte with the aim of creating jobs. They said they haven't seen the results they were promised.

"Those tax breaks were supposed to create jobs," Wayne Peworchik, one of the protesters, said. "That was President Obama's and Congress's intent."

"Instead, Pulte laid off workers," Peworchik said.

Marc Norberg, the union official who led the protest, said they protested the summit held by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America because "this is where Pulte is, and the mortgage bankers should know."

"Pulte used that money for land acquisition, and that land isn't being used," Norberg said.

He added that the union has been targeting Pulte for years, but the homebuilder won't meet with them.

Union workers said they're with the AFL-CIO, which played a part in the protest.

The roughly 10-minute demonstration ended once more security officers were brought in.

The Pulte Group provided the following statemet to The Huffington Post:

"PulteGroup builds the majority of its homes by working with thousands of highly-skilled and committed local and regional trade contractors. These trade contractors are typically small, independent companies that are the engine of our economy. PulteGroup does not directly employ the majority of the workers at its job sites, which means that the protest today at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference was misdirected and an unfortunate incident. In 2010, PulteGroup invested more than $1.0 billion in new land and development to support its ongoing operations, which enables its contractors to employ both union and non-union workers. As has been well documented, the U.S. housing industry continues to struggle, but we continue to invest in the business to capitalize on market opportunities as they develop."

Comments

[DeSwiss]

03:39 PM on 01/21/2011

Care to explain HuffPo?

Yesterday, after hearing from officials from the Mortgage Bankers' Association, Peter S. Goodman, a business editor at the Huffington Post, decided to take it upon himself to FIRE Mike Elk, a labor reporter in Washington, DC who covered and helped break a story that exposed their lobbying for a back door bailout.

While the Huffington Post in the past has based itself on its liberal credentials and independence, practices like these threaten to ruin its credibility.

Peter Goodman, the author of a recent story that paid homage to China's unfair trade practices, fired Elk after receiving complaints from representatives of the Mortgage Bankers' Association.

The Huffington Post was able to break this story thanks to unlimited access afforded to it by Elk who accompanied 200 construction workers who broke into a Mortgage Bankers Association summit in Washington, DC. The workers demanded to know why PulteGroup, fresh off a consumer fraud settlement in Arizona, had an executive chairing the summit and what the company did with a $900 million bailout received through the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. The act was intended to create jobs and extend benefits to jobless workers but, according to Pulte's CEO, was instead used for land acquisition and debt restructuring.

FULL story at link. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/21/112152/834

[DeSwiss]

01:51 AM on 01/22/2011

I guess they'd rather not explain. Boy, what a day, huh? First Mike and then Keith.

Looks like TPTB are clearing the decks.....

[bicycsual]

10:31 AM on 01/27/2011

This publication, having successfully branded itself as "progressive" but allowing dissent, has never been pro-labor by any stretch of the imagination.

In fairness, DailyKos is not much better. One need only read the comments section to see that both have a readership loyal to the DNP at any cost.

[Alphaa]

10:56 AM on 01/20/2011

Great article.

[dlbnext]

10:12 AM on 01/20/2011

"Creative Accounting" Makes Fed Insolvency Impossible

[rallies]

09:55 AM on 01/20/2011

All of those complaining about the gap between the execs and the workers, need to do a little union housecleaning, first.....These union bosses have taken your retirement money and spent it on politics.
It is now, coming back to haunt the unions, just like the robbing of the SS fund has done to the rest of America.
Those are the people you need to be hanging from a lightpole.

[Gatorboy]

11:53 AM on 01/20/2011

Haha! I love how the right has suckered you people into actually siding with the banks and the ultra wealthy. Priceless.

[DeSwiss]

01:54 AM on 01/22/2011

Divide and conquer.

They stick with the classics.....

/faved

[TonkaTruck]

07:25 AM on 01/20/2011

Within the last 30 years, union membership has declined from 30% to just 9% of the workforce. My Dad was in a union; he made a livable wage with benefits and could provide for the whole family. We lived a nice MIDDLE CLASS lifestyle.

What's the stats on the middle class today? Read about it all the time; it's being DESTROYED. Could there be a correlation with that and the drop in union membership?

Amazing; talking heads want to say unions destroyed the country, when really it's the transnational "American" corporations; "union workers get paid too much" Oh yeah? Not in comparison to the high paid corporate pigs; not even close.

Unions provide livable wages, and benefits. 40 hour a week work, and a 2 day weekends are around thanks to unions. A livable wage is nothing like the outrageously high paid corporate welfare bankers and pigs whose incomes far exceed that of the livable wage.

[Amondale]

08:57 AM on 01/20/2011

Right on! Oh hell yes I fan and fav your comment. Thank you.

[Adam Story]

11:26 AM on 01/21/2011

Me too.

[dyannne]

03:31 PM on 02/14/2011

You are so correct!

[TonkaTruck]

07:16 AM on 01/20/2011

Rock on!!!

There needs to be organized movements like this across the nation. Finally; a group of people that don't bend over without a fight!!!

[bluecollaramerican]

07:01 AM on 01/20/2011

Where did the money go? In 2009, Richard J. Dugas Jr. CEO, received $5,855,510 in total compensation. By comparison, the average worker made $32,048 in 2009. Richard J. Dugas Jr. made 182 times the average worker's pay.

[Jeany]

03:19 AM on 01/20/2011

Before this discussion fades, I wanted to post a link to the Mondragón Corporation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation] I mentioned co-ops earlier in the discussion, and I've been promising myself for a while to look up this example of a very large cooperative that's been in operation for more than 50 years and employs more than 30,000 workers.

Sustainability is a word not normally used in discussions of employer/worker power, but maybe it's time. Capitalism is a beautiful thing up to a point, and that point is the very powerful inherent tendency to become metastatic. I think we may be approaching that point.

[cameron d]

03:16 AM on 01/20/2011

There is power in a union! Well done brothers and sisters!

[joeisright]

07:24 AM on 01/20/2011

There is power in welfare people too.

[Amondale]

08:58 AM on 01/20/2011

No there isn't, but thanks for contributing. (??)

[AmosKnows]

02:31 AM on 01/20/2011

And there goes more of that trickle down magic that I keep hearing about. I bet they are building houses in China with taxpayer money - that seems to be the game plan.

[OldTulsan]

01:59 AM on 01/20/2011

This is an Economic Policy Institute article from August 26, 2010...

http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/jobs_..._but_low_pay/
Jobs ... but low pay

"While a lack of jobs is arguably the biggest problem facing the labor market, another major concern is the quality of the jobs that are being created. The Figure presents the five fastest growing occupations between 2006 and 2009 and shows that all but one of them pays below the median wage in May 2009 of $15.95 an hour. The two fastest-growing occupations, home health care and food preparation and serving, pay closer to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour than the median wage. A food preparation worker’s typical wage of $8.28 an hour would earn an annual salary of $16,560, based on a typical 2,000-hour work year: That salary is just below the 2009 poverty threshold for a family of three. Warehouse stock clerks, another fast-growing occupation, would earn slightly more than $20,000 per year..."

You'll need to cut and paste the link.

[sarabono]

12:42 AM on 01/20/2011

Pulte will build as many houses as they can sell and make a profit on.
Don't the Union Workers understand that ?

[Amondale]

09:00 AM on 01/20/2011

Can you give us a quick rundown on the union's grievances with Pulte?

No? Oh, that's right. One needs to actually know what the fQ they're talking about to actually do that, wouldn't they?

[lcky9]

12:33 AM on 01/20/2011

There is NO reason for ANYONE to barge into a PRIVATE meeting.. Being a THUG only works IF the other side doesn't become THUGS in response.. WE owe CHINA they lent us money.. so we should lay down if they decide to BARGE in and demand we do things their way?? UNIONS better think LONG and HARD about what they are doing they are losing support..

[waltifarian]

01:41 AM on 01/20/2011

I am a taxpayer. These guys took aour money. They did not create jobs. They should have not been bailed out and be forced to go broke like everyone else. Good on the Unions. May they continue.

[MGLLC]

01:48 AM on 01/20/2011

Amen.

[Viper1st]

11:18 AM on 01/20/2011

Just like the $878 billion Stimulus Program was intended to create 300,000 new jobs.

When it failed ~ BHO Adm tracked backwards to "it saved existing jobs"

Pulte's use of these funds were to "save existing jobs" ~ create new ones is just your expectations

[Doug Kinton]

12:32 AM on 01/20/2011

Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? They shouted over and over! The Unions caused
them to be placed offshore in foreign countries because of their ridiculous demands, that's
where the jobs went!

[Willie Huff]

01:18 AM on 01/20/2011

That's fine, we can get rid of the unions and your kids can go back to work for pennies on the day as soon as they can start manipulating tools.

You like your 40 hour work week? You like a guaranteed minimum wage? You like vacation time?

You like keeping those things? Better thank the unions then.

It's not the unions sending jobs overseas, it's trade agreements like NAFTA that send them over seas because that's where the labor is cheaper since countries over there don't have to adhere to safety regulations among other things, like their currency and cost of living being cheaper over there.

But yeah buddy, those unions suck. Keep on raging brotha.

[OldTulsan]

01:54 AM on 01/20/2011

I have NEVER found a union-basher who has such strong courage of their convictions that they decline union-won benefits.

Employers do not give out such benefits out of the goodness of their hearts.

[Boxerman]

03:15 PM on 01/20/2011

F abd F Willie

[waltifarian]

01:42 AM on 01/20/2011

Oh yeah, Unions caused outsourcing. What else, the tooth fairy is coming?

[OldTulsan]

10:17 PM on 01/19/2011

The unions should protest bankers only being fined when caught laundering drug money...

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asU.b_fCjHTE
Wachovia's Drug Habit - Bloomberg.com

"...The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.

Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.

[snip]

Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.

Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering.

The theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks, Blum says.

“There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure,” Blum says. “They seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line, until they’re caught...”