Democratic Senators Ask for Labor Department Probe of Wells Fargo
September 22 2016 - 4:30PM
Dow Jones News
WASHINGTON—A group of Democratic senators on Thursday asked the
Labor Department to open an investigation into labor practices
affecting Wells Fargo & Co.'s bank tellers and other retail
employees, escalating pressure on the bank embroiled in a scandal
over its sales practices.
The request came in a letter sent Thursday to top Labor
Department officials from eight lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who has emerged as Congress's
leading critic of Wells Fargo. At a Senate panel hearing on
Tuesday, Ms. Warren urged Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf
to resign and return pay to take responsibility for the problem. At
the hearing, Mr. Stumpf apologized for behavior that led employees
to create as many as two million unwanted or fictitious customer
accounts in an effort to meet sales goals. The bank fired 5,300
employees over the sales practices, largely lower-level
workers.
Specifically, the senators asked the department's Wage and Hour
Division to make an inquiry into whether Wells Fargo "aggressively
skirted" overtime laws and failed to properly compensate bank
tellers and associates who worked long hours to meet their sales
quotas, or salaried bank associates misclassified as
overtime-exempt officers.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the bank prides itself on
"creating a positive environment for our team members, including
market competitive compensation, career-development opportunities,
a broad array of benefits, and a strong offering of work-life
programs."
A Labor Department spokesman confirmed the receipt of the letter
and said that the department officials "take the concerns raised in
the letter very seriously." He added that he couldn't discuss
details of potential law enforcement decision-making.
The senators said their request is based on regulators' findings
of "a workplace characterized by stringent sales quotas and
aggressive incentives imposed on its employees, and staggering
neglect by management of the obvious consequences to consumers of
those quotas and incentives."
Wells Fargo has been under increasing heat from regulators and
lawmakers since it settled allegations of misconduct and agreed to
pay a combined fine of $185 million earlier this month. Federal
prosecutors have initiated a criminal investigation into the
case.
Following Tuesday's Senate panel, a House committee is scheduled
to question Mr. Stumpf at its own hearing Sept. 29.
Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 22, 2016 17:15 ET (21:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2024 to May 2024
Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2023 to May 2024