Thousands Rally For Financial Reform In Chicago

A protester outside a banking conference in Chicago on Oct. 26, 2009
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Thousands of protesters have gathered outside a banking conference in Chicago today — the final day of a three-day rally for financial reform — to call for an end to lobbying against proposed financial regulation by banks that pocketed taxpayer bailouts last year.

“We thought it was time to send them a message that they’re bankrupting America,” Jerry Morrison, executive director of the Illinois state council of the SEIU, told me in a phone interview this morning, with a clamoring protest audible in the background. “We gave them money, and it’s time they gave it back.”

Morrison said he expected 8,000 to 10,000 protesters to rally in Chicago today, where the American Bankers Association is holding a conference. Morrison said the point of the protest is to kick off “a nationwide campaign” in dozens of cities pushing big banks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase “to stop using our money to lobby against reform.”

“We wanna make sure they get the message loud and clear,” he said.

Morrison said protesters have confronted bankers as they walk from their limos to the conference, and have followed them on public portions of the conference itinerary, including on a tour of Oak Park, a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry and on a boat tour of downtown Chicago.

“Wherever they go, we go,” Morrison said.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also addressed protesters this afternoon. Check out his remarks as prepared for delivery here. The SEIU also has a Flickr stream of the protests here, and video of the protests here.

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