CHICAGO - As the nation's top CEOs held a June 14 summit behind closed doors at the Hyatt Regency here 5,000 angry demonstrators outside chanted, "You got bailed out, we got sold out!" Twenty-five members of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union were arrested for sitting down in the street outside the hotel. As police led them away, people belonging to 15 unions and dozens of community organizations chanted, "Let them go!" All those arrested were booked for blocking traffic and released.
The thousands converged outside the executives' summit after three kickoff rallies at Daley Plaza, the State of Illinois building and City Center. It was a noisy, spirited and peaceful demonstration against corporate greed. Protesters marched on the Hyatt, organizers said, both because the CEO summit was taking place there and because the hotel is owned by the billionaire Pritzker family, which the local labor movement says is notorious for union-busting.
As the CEOs met in the Hyatt tower, thousands of demonstrators filled the streets below. The business execs, according to the Chamber of Commerce which sponsored the summit, were discussing "best practices" and "leadership skill techniques." The crowds jamming the streets below demanded that the CEOs talk, instead, about creating jobs and reinvesting in the community, in small businesses and in Chicago's public schools.
"They are not doing anything good for Chicago," said Maria Ratanski, a janitor who belongs to SEIU.Ratanksi, 44, came from Poland as a young girl in 1974 and raised a family here in Chicago. She said she marched because she has an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old son, both unable to find jobs. "They are getting very very rich," she said, about the CEOs meeting in the tower. "They say when they get rich, we get jobs, but they are not making any jobs. They get richer and richer, we get poorer and poorer."
keep reading at:
http://www.peoplesworld.org/5-000-join-union-led-march-against-corporate-greed/
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