For $700 Billion, the Answer Is…”It’s Not My Problem.”

07Dec08

Imagine walking into work Monday morning, to a job you’ve held for years, to find out that you only have three days of employment remaining. With the holidays just a couple of weeks away and knowing the state of today’s economy, you are devastated, scared, and worried. Bracing yourself you do some quick mental calculations and figure that between all those vacation days that you have yet to take and the severance package from the company, you should be able to keep things together long enough to find another position. But then comes the next wave of news and now whether or not you will receive any of that pay is in question.

Faced with this scenario, more than 250 employees at Republic Window and Doors in Chicago decided to stage a sit-in to demand their vacation and severance pay. Their sit-in has become national news and has drawn the attention of numerous figures including the Rev. Jesse Jackson who attempted to act as an intermediary between the workers and Bank of America, the institution who owns Republics line of credit. He attempted to persuade BofA to extend Republic’s line of credit to allow these workers to keep their jobs or at the very least, extend it enough to allow the employees to all receive the pay they expect.

It has been reported that Bank of America’s response was something along the lines of the employees pay wasn’t their problem.

I have a problem with this. Not just with the callousness in the attitudes of some of those involved, it goes further than that. My understanding of the principles of economics in our country is that jobs and employment are essential for recovery. And no one should know that better than a member of the industry that (a) started this mess in the first place and (b) is the beneficiary of a $700 billion bailout financed in part by the very same employees that “aren’t their problem”. So it seems that this situation is very much BofA’s problem and that this is exactly the type of situation that a portion of the bailout should be used for. The last thing that I expect is that anyone of the “brilliant” minds out their in the banking industry will recognize this and make it their problem so Bush…Obama…members of Congress…Senators? Stand up and step in here – you passed the bailout, you handle the issues.