Wells Fargo and workers on Tuesday will kick off three days of scheduled bargaining talks at a branch in Albuquerque, N.M. The Eldorado branch in Albuquerque voted to join the Communications Workers of America’s Wells Fargo Workers United last December, making it the first branch of a big US bank to unionize.
With contract talks on tap, the Albuquerque branch has again drawn the attention of Wells Fargo employees around the country who voted to form a union at their branch or corporate office—or who are considering doing so.
A successful contract negotiation could spur even more movement, said Anne Marie Lofaso, a law professor at West Virginia University.
“These first contracts very often set the tone for how successful future union campaigns will be in the case where there’s all these satellites,” Lofaso, a longtime National Labor Relations Board attorney, said.
Workers are attempting to negotiate a national contract that other branches around the country could then ratify, assembling a five-member bargaining team with one employee from the Eldorado branch, as well as two from Florida, one from Delaware, and one from California.
“Our goal is to get to a national contract that is treated the same for every branch that has unionized or will unionized,” said Sabrina Perez, a senior premier banker at the Eldorado branch.
Wells Fargo is seeking to have each individual branch negotiate a separate contract.
Wells Fargo will bargain in “good faith,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based bank said.
“Wells Fargo is proud of the competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and attractive career development opportunities we provide our employees,” the spokesperson said. “Our goal is to work together toward a fair contract for all involved stakeholders.”
The three-day bargaining session isn’t likely to result in a contract. Instead, the two sides are expected to exchange proposals and return to bargaining later.
The Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which is affiliated with the CWA, represents employees of Bloomberg Law.
Scandal Born
The drive to create a union at Wells Fargo grew out of the fake-accounts scandal that emerged in 2016 and other violations that have dogged the company. Workers are seeking to push back against what they believe are unreasonable sales goals and other pressure from management.
“None of us have a desire to return to that work environment,” Perez, who has worked in various roles and locations at Wells Fargo for 11 years, said. “This is not about impacting or reducing Wells Fargo’s overall productivity.”
Staffing is another key issue.
“Having the appropriate number of staff there so that are customers are well taken care of” is a major problem, said Scott Keehn, a senior premier banker in a Wilmington, Del., branch and a member of the bargaining team.
The union is also likely to seek increased pay and better benefits, Keehn and Perez said.
Growing Reach
While the union has filed several unfair labor practice complaints against Wells Fargo alleging undue pressure and retaliation against workers seeking to organize, the bank so far has largely steered clear of more aggressive tactics employed by
“I was always prepared for what might come next, but the next never happened,” said Brittany Ball, an associate personal banker at an Anniston, Ala., Wells Fargo branch that voted Oct. 9 to form a union.
The Anniston branch was one of two that recently unionized in states that haven’t typically been friendly to unions. Workers at a branch in Casper, Wyo., voted Sept. 26 to unionize.
Although Wells Fargo hasn’t engaged in overly combative tactics, it’s taken some steps to halt the union’s progress.
The bank hired top employer-side law firm Littler Mendelson PC to advise it on how to handle the union campaign. Wells Fargo management has also engaged in small-group meetings and other tactics in a bid to persuade employees that a union isn’t necessary.
Those efforts may have backfired in some cases, said Andy King, a personal banker at the Casper branch.
“I kept hearing about it more and more through Wells Fargo more than anyone else,” King, said.
To date, 22 of Wells Fargo’s more than 4,300 branches have voted to join the union, with the latest coming in Freehold, N.J., on Oct. 22, according to the union’s website.
A branch in Toms River, N.J., is set to vote Nov. 14 on whether to join.
Workers in Wells Fargo’s contact management intake department began voting Oct. 10 on whether to unionize, marking the first time bank employees beyond a local branch took that step. Voting closed Oct. 31.
Contract Strategy
The union’s desired national contract would deal with issues such as the formula Wells Fargo uses to determine staffing levels at individual branches at particular times, Perez said.
“There needs to be transparency about what that looks like and why it’s set at the way it is right now,” she said.
The Casper branch where King works has seen staffing levels drop, leaving customers waiting on long lines to get business done, he said.
“Since I started, our team has shrunk,” King said. “I don’t think our traffic has shrunk.”
Likewise, staffing issues at the Anniston branch were forcing customers with limited time to consider taking their business elsewhere, said Brittannia Matthews, 36, the branch operations coordinator in Anniston and a member of its bargining unit.
The contract negotiations are being watched closely, not only by Wells Fargo workers who have already unionized, but also by bank employees who haven’t taken the plunge, Matthews said.
“They kind of are just waiting to see what happens with the contract,” she said. “I think it’s the fear of the unknown.”
Source: news.bloomberglaw.com
