Advocates plan Western Union pickets

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2007/09/10/daily46.html

The Denver Business Journal - 3:01 PM MDT Friday, September 14, 2007
by Renee McGaw
Denver Business Journal

An immigration advocacy group says it expects to start picketing Western Union agents in Colorado within four to six weeks, mainly protesting the company's money-transfer fees and level of charitable giving.

A new five-year, $50 million charitable giving initiative that Western Union announced this week -- called Our World, Our Family -- is not enough, said Francis Calpotura, director of the Oakland, Calif.-based Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action, or TIGRA. TIGRA launched a nationwide boycott of Western Union on Sept. 10, which is being rolled out in various cities, starting with Los Angeles, San Antonio and Chicago.

In Denver, TIGRA is in talks with a local church and Padres Unidos to organize a local boycott. Calpotura said that agents would be approached about participating in the boycott before a decision to picket them was made.

Western Union's new charitable program will become the vehicle through which all of its philanthropic giving is funneled, Western Union spokesman Dan Diaz said. Since 2000, the company has given about $40 million through various charitable grants.

Our World, Our Family will include a scholarship program for families of two-country workers. Western Union's existing participation in the Mexican government's "Tres por Uno" program, a dollar-matching initiative, will be one of the pillars of the Our World, Our Family umbrella.

Calpotura says that's part of the problem -- Western Union's new program appears little more than a "repackaging" of its old one, he said.

FULL story at link.