Bank of America Extends Credit to Factory

"When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right," Obama said at a news conference Sunday. "If they have earned their benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments."

Related

TARP Turf War Could Further Hurt Economy

Year-Old Recession Finally Made Official

No Deal Yet: Auto Bailout Still in Park

Illinois Gov. Calls for Pressure on Bank

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called Monday for a boycott to pressure the bank to provide credit and lend support to the workers.

"We have contacted all our agencies across state government and, as of now, every agency has been ordered to suspend doing any business with the Bank of America," Blagojevich said Monday. "We hope this kind of leverage and pressure to do the right thing for this business -- take some of the federal tax money that they've received and invest it -- by providing the necessary credit to this company so these workers can keep their jobs."

The dispute is caught up in the tangle of the bailout money, hundreds of billions, handed over to big banks with few strings attached.

"Companies are failing now because they can't get bank lending, despite the fact that the government has handed out so much of the bailout money," said Lynn Lopucki, law professor at UCLA and Harvard. "The Treasury should have extracted from the banks, as a condition of this money, a promise that they were going to lend."

At Bank of America's Chicago offices, officials met Monday to hammer out some kind of deal. Meanwhile, protests spilled over to some of the bank's branches and, back at the factory, workers insisted that the drama would continue until they get the money they say they are owed.