LI union moves money from Chase to local bank

A Long Island-based local of the United Auto Workers Union has a few words for JPMorgan Chase and Verizon, some of which are unprintable.

Local 259 says it has pulled its money — “just south of $1 million,” according to the local’s president — out of Chase and transferred it to a locally based bank in protest of what it calls Chase’s “corporate greed.”

To make the point, some of the local’s 1,500 members who repair cars and run parts departments at dealerships are planning to march on one of the bank’s branches Thursday afternoon — in the Huntington Square Mall on Jericho Turnpike in East Northport.

“Our money shall not assist these bad greedy banksters no more!” the union says in an advisory to members that was shared with the media.

The advisory claims, “Chase was bailed out and working people got sold out,” and that Chase is “the leader in foreclosed homes” granting relatively few modifications of mortgages.

A spokesman in Manhattan for J.P. Morgan Chase declined to comment but referred a reporter to government filings, news releases and published articles showing that the bank repaid its $25 billion in federal bailout money with a profit for the government and that, nationwide, it has granted 1.2 million trial modifications to mortgages since the beginning of 2009.

The workers are also taking a swipe at another company on their you-know-what list: Verizon, which the auto workers say is unfair to organized labor. So they’ll gather at a Verizon garage on Larkfield Road, also in East Northport, before marching to the bank and a nearby Verizon store.

Verizon was struck for two weeks in August by other unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The strikers agreed to return to their jobs while negotiations continued.

At Verizon, spokesman John Bonomo in Manhattan said the auto workers were basing their accusations on “one-sided” information from the Verizon unions that is “probably inaccurate” and that the company is simply trying to make itself more competitive.

Photo: Pro-labor groups and members of the Communication Workers of America rally outside a Verizon facility in East Northport to protest what they said is "corporate greed." (Nov. 3, 2011)