As the second largest bank in the country (after J.P Morgan Chase) and the biggest foreclosure profiteer, Bank of America is a major culprit of in the economic crisis. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC – the biggest financial center outside of Wall Street – Bank of America has been treating its home in the South with the same brazen disrespect as it has treated homeowners across the country. They finance destructive mountaintop removal that perpetuates deadly coal mining in the Appalachian regions. Together with Wells Fargo, BofA have has caused the biggest racial wealth gap in decades by robbing millions of African American and Latino families of their biggest asset – their homes. What’s more, they’ve been bailed out again and again and they’ve STILL FAILED. Billions of our tax dollars went to bail out BofA, yet they continue with irresponsible and unaccountable behavior including recently quadrupling the pay of CEO Brian Moynihan.
DEMANDS & VISION
BREAK UP THE BANK, CREATE A COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT BANK
Big Banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo are failed institutions that present a clear and present danger to the global economy. They eat up public tax dollars, prey on the poor and working class, communities of color and immigrants, and fund destructive projects that foster environmental destruction, incarceration and war. They must be broken up for the good of the 99%. We must develop a national Community Reinvestment Bank — created with federal dollars and run by a community Board of Directors — to support local economic development initiatives and to ensure banking accountability.
IMMEDIATE DEMANDS
1. STOP PROFITING FROM THE CRISIS YOU CAUSED
- Make principal reduction the norm for all struggling homeowners, especially in communities of color that received the worst and riskiest loans.
- Stop all discriminatory practices including renewed redlining and continued predatory lending.
- Pay your fair share of taxes and stop draining the public sector. Pay property taxes on foreclosed properties, and the statutorily required 35% corporate income tax instead of gaming the system through off-shore tax shelters, loopholes, and scams, which is denying the public sector more than 2 billion in revenue.
- Turn over unoccupied foreclosed housing to community and non-profit ownership that is not subject to foreclosure or speculation.
2. UPHOLD THE RIGHT TO STAY
- Expand the BofA pilot rental program to allow homeowners targeted by subprime loans and flawed foreclosure proceedings to stay in their homes as rent paying tenants.
- Be Landlords not Slumlords: Hold third party agencies accountable to complying with local, state and national tenant protection laws.
- Stop ICE-ing Out Tenants: Cease all no-fault evictions and harassment of tenants including the use of homeland security to raid immigrant tenants’ homes.
- Commit to a Moratorium on Foreclosure and Evictions until internal mechanisms for the above are put in place.
3. RESPECT RIGHTS AT WORK
- Break from current oppressive “right to work” conditions and instead respect “rights at work”: pay workers back wages, stop layoffs, and respect workers’ right to organize and the right to form and join unions.
- Stop pay increases for executives including Moynihan and pay all workers a living wage.
4. DIVEST FROM DIRTY COAL, INVEST IN IMPACTED COMMUNITIES
- Immediately cease investment in coal mining and mountaintop removal
- Invest instead in sustainable development for communities hardest hit by mountaintop removal and the foreclosure crisis.