Last May, Wells Fargo Bank told the roughly 100 employees of Quad City Die Casting that they would be out of a job this week. The bank is the main creditor of the 60-year old privately held metal parts-maker located in the Mississippi River town of Moline, Ill.
Quad City Die Casting hit a rough patch with the recession, and Wells Fargo decided not to lend more money to the company that workers and their union (United Electrical Workers) regarded as a viable enterprise with potential buyers. But Wells Fargo, bailed out with $25 billion federal dollars and expected to make loans that would help the U.S. economy recover, insisted on closing the factory.
Then last Friday, the bank changed its tune — a little. Now the factory will close on August 21. The reason? Ironically, orders are strong, and the business is doing well.
But now UE — the same scrappy union that represented Republic Windows workers in Chicago who took over their threatened factory last December in a fight with managers and Bank of America — and its Quad City members are escalating the fight. On Thursday, July 9, 11 protesters were arrested for blocking a busy street outside a local Wells Fargo branch while holding up a banner reading, “Wells Fargo — Roadblock to Recovery.”
The union also filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board over Wells Fargo’s refusal to release funds to pay for accrued vacation days, a floating holiday, a 2 percent contractually obligated pay increase, health insurance premiums since May, and even bills for earlier healthcare that providers submitted after mid-May.
One worker now faces paying $27,000 for his wife’s surgery, which occurred while insurance coverage was supposedly in force. But, like the Bank of America at Republic Windows, Wells Fargo is trying to deny workers their rightful earnings, including income from months prior to the bank taking control.
But the union is still reaching out to buyers and mobilizing political pressure on the bank. “We hope to encourage Wells Fargo in saving jobs and making sure benefits are paid,” organizer Leah Fried says. “Workers will do whatever is necessary.”
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David Moberg, a former senior editor of In These Times, was on staff with the magazine from when it began publishing in 1976 until his passing in July 2022. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. He received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.
