Partners: Americans for Financial Reform, California Public Interest Research Group, Center for Responsible Lending, Greenlining Institute
Predatory lending and unfair financial policies harm millions of working families. In California, CWA is part of a coalition of consumer, community and other groups working to restore financial fairness to these families.
This summer, CWA activists joined members of the California Public Interest Research Group, Center for Responsible Lending, Greenlining Institute and others. Coalition members collected 165,000 petitions and delivered them to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office, urging Feinstein and the Senate to confirm Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
This was part of the campaign to press Senator Feinstein on the critical need to change the Senate rules. Without the support of Senate Democrats, we wouldn’t have a fully functioning NLRB or an active CFPB.
This coalition of financial reformers also greeted shareholders at Wells Fargo’s annual shareholder 2012 meeting in San Francisco, where 500 people protested the bank’s predatory lending practices — actions that have dragged one in five home mortgages underwater. Rallying against soaring foreclosure rates that have devastated families and communities, protestors formed human chains to block entrances to the building and interrupted CEO John Stumpf’s speech to shareholders at least four times.
This kind of partnership will be a big part of our national effort to organize finance workers.