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Protesters march on offices of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo
Hundreds of union members and organizers descended on the streets of downtown Chicago on Monday morning to picket the offices of Goldman Sachs Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.
The group, which included supporters from community group National People's Action and the Service Employees International Union, has organized the protests to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association. The group is demanding that "banks end their over-reliance on greed and profits and commit to using their taxpayer bailouts and backstops to help America's economy recover," said a news release from the Service Employees International Union.
The protests, similar to ones that have flared up in other cities throughout the financial crisis, pick up on popular sentiment that big banks are partly to blame for the financial crisis. Last week, a government pay czar proposed slashing compensation for bank executives whose companies received government bailout money.
Most of the protesters on the Chicago streets Monday appeared to be with a union and many of them were brought in on yellow school buses from across the Midwest. The message was one of ire at bank executives' large bonuses, bank foreclosures and predatory lending.