Labor & Employment Law

AFL-CIO?s Holt Baker: Banks Must Modify Mortgages to Staunch Foreclosures

By admin

Brandon Rees, deputy director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, is traveling with Holt Baker today and sends us this report.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker is meeting today with two of the Big Banks to discuss the foreclosure crisis and the ?robo-signing? of foreclosure documents by bank executives. The AFL-CIO has urged the banks to declare a moratorium on foreclosures and to modify mortgages of struggling homeowners as an alternative to foreclosure. Says Holt Baker:

Foreclosures harm working families who have suffered due to the economic recession, foreclosures harm our communities by reducing property values and foreclosures harm the investors in mortgage-backed securities. For these reasons, banks must do everything in their power to modify mortgages as an alternative to foreclosure.

Holt Baker is scheduled to tour a ?home preservation? workshop sponsored by Wells Fargo in Brooklyn, where bank staff will meet with homeowners to discuss mortgage modifications and other possible strategies for avoiding foreclosures. She also will meet with JPMorgan Chase representatives at the bank?s headquarters in Manhattan. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are two of the nation?s largest mortgage servicers. She joins New York City Comptroller John Liu to discuss his efforts to protect homeowners from the foreclosure crisis.

New York City Comptroller John Liu is to be commended for his ongoing work to hold Big Banks accountable for their role in the foreclosure crisis. While some progress has been made to find alternatives to foreclosure, we will continue to push the banks for more to be done.

Check out an AFL-CIO booklet on steps you should take when facing foreclosure. Click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 26, 2011 (boomark / email).