Bank Worker Update

Members of Congress Urge Santander to Remain Neutral

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) led a letter with 50 Members of Congress urging Santander Bank to remain neutral as their employees decide whether they want union representation. Santander already has 150,000 unionized workers throughout Europe and South America.

In the letter, the Members wrote, "We were disappointed to hear that, to date, Santander's U.S. management has not responded to the workers' requests and has continued to discourage employees from participating in union activities, even on their own time. We hope the company's unwillingness to have a conversation with its employees about neutrality is not a harbinger of management's opposition to their unionizing efforts."

Read the full letter here.

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The Government Wouldn't Rein In the Banks' Predatory Practices—Until These Tellers Stepped In

The Nation ran a feature story about the extraordinary efforts of the Committee for Better Banks:

As with the toppling of any Goliath, the elevation of Wells Fargo's fraudulent scheme into a high-profile national scandal didn't happen by accident. Rather, a growing national coalition called the Committee for Better Banks, or CBB, spread the word—and then ratcheted up the pressure.


Since 2013, at least, the CBB has labored assiduously to turn bank workers and consumers into a force capable of combating Wall Street's predatory practices. A project of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and numerous community organizations, the group was born from a recognition that front-line bank workers—tellers, personal bankers, and other branch-level employees—have an enormous potential to change the consumer-banking industry in this country. As the people who deal with customers directly, these workers can see and sympathize with the real-life impact of abusive lending and retail tactics. Moreover, as people who are themselves exploited by the banks—while Stumpf made as much as $19.3 million a year during his time as CEO, bank tellers earn a median wage of $12.44 an hour, according to the National Employment Law Project—they and their customers have a common cause.


Read the full piece here.