Union Wants to Oust Bank of America’s Boss
Union campaigns to oust BofA chief Lewis
By Greg Farrell in New York
Published: April 20 2009 03:00
One of the largest labour unions in the US is trying to oust Bank of America chief Ken Lewis as part of a campaign to organise tens of thousands of employees across the financial services industry.
The Service Employees International Union, which has 2 million members, released a four-minute video on Thursday urging BofA shareholders to “fire Ken Lewis”. The video coincides with a proxy campaign waged by Change To Win, which represents the pension investments of seven unions, including the SEIU, which has called for the removal of Mr Lewis and Temple Sloan, BofA’s lead director, at the bank’s shareholder meeting April 29.
While labour groups such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme) often submit shareholder proposals to companies deemed to have weak corporate governance policies, the service employees union wants to force BofA to change its fundamental business practices.
Stephen Lerner, an executive board member of the union, says BofA has “an unsustainable business model” predicated on the cross-selling of various financial products to customers. He says that low-level employees of BofA have approached the union with complaints about the pressure they feel to cross-sell credit cards to BofA customers, a practice that pushes people “into greater debt”.
Mr Lerner says the SEIU has been focused on BofA for the past few years. But the dual strategy of campaigning against management during proxy season while trying to organise a company’s workers exposes the union to charges that it is more interested in its own recruiting goals than the interests of shareholders.
Mr Lerner says Mr Lewis should be fired for poor performance, and that the interests of shareholders are not always in the best interests of the economy.
“We care about a whole variety of constituencies, workers, the impact on community, the economy as a whole,” he says. “Ken Lewis has been failing workers and failing the economy.”
In addition, Mr Lerner and the SEIU say that BofA is “actively fighting” the Employee Free Choice Act, a proposed law that would allow unions to be certified by the National Labor Relations Board if a majority of employees signed cards expressing interest in unionising.
The proposed law, which failed to receive critical support in Congress this year, would essentially remove the requirement that a majority of employees in a given company vote in favour of unionising by secret ballot. BofA said it had not taken a position on the matter.
The SEIU also claims BofA does not provide affordable healthcare for its lowest paid employees, who are forced to seek healthcare at public expense at hospital emergency rooms.