A few of the comments suggest that a lack of legal action is somehow proof that Wells Fargo must not be a toxic work environment. This is a poorly veiled attempt to discredit/minimize employees’ legitimate complaints regarding Charlie’s consistent and progressively toxic management style.
On one hand, a CEO or manager CAN create a toxic work environment without necessarily violating labor laws which are primarily focused on harassment or discrimination based on a protected class: race, color, s-x, religion, national origin, disability and age.
Proving harassment or discrimination can be incredibly difficult as it can be hard to gather concrete evidence to meet the high standard of proof. The burden of proof falls on the employee. Will the end result be worth it? That is a question every employee (including myself at various points in time) must ask themselves. Off the top of my head, there are instances of violations throughout my division and throughout the bank though not necessarily involving myself: age, s-x and color violations; equal pay for equal work violations; unequal treatment of employees - inconsistent rules, unfair practices and discrimination/bias around promotions; reverse DEI discrimination; management violating their own lengthy “Code of Ethics”; and false advertising suggesting Wells Fargo’s primary focus is on it’s customers.
On the other hand, WFC has paid out over $900,000,000 in penalties for many employment related offenses including workplace whistleblower retaliation, workplace safety or health violations, wage and hour violations, violations related to ADA, benefit plan administrator violations, employee discrimination, employment discrimination, unequal pay and promotional bias towards 1200 female FA’s, segregation and disparate treatment of Black FAs vs white counterparts, and FMLA violations.
Additionally, there is no shortage of employee lawsuits in play as we speak alleging WFC is mismanaging employee health insurance plans forcing tens of thousands of US employees to overpay for prescription dr-gs (class action- get in on that one), complaints of threatening and intimidation tactics towards employees seeing to organize, retaliation for filing complaints about discrimination, the sham DEI hiring effort (class action), disability and age discrimination, former advisors suing for termination after refusing to collect sensitive client data from their clients which would be secretly shared with Wells Private Bank, accusations of not paying OT at short-staffed branches (class action), failure to reimburse employees for business expenses while WFH during pandemic (class action), WFC misusing employee forfeited 401K funds in violation of ERISA (class action), ADA violations related to WFH, withholding mandatory breaks (class action), s-x discrimination, classifying employees as Exempt Salaried to avoid paying OT when those employees did not meet the legal definition of Exempt, and more.
Part of the post questions “Is Wells Fargo careful?” I would argue No. Their greed makes them reckless. Their egos make them reckless. Their obsession with cutting expenses makes them reckless. Their blind spots in leadership make them reckless. Their handing off responsibilities and jobs to third party vendors makes them reckless. Their offshoring HR makes them reckless. Their lack of a safe and trustworthy process for employees to file complaints within the bank makes them reckless. Their lust for power and underestimating their employees makes them reckless. The asleep-at-the-wheel BOD makes them reckless. A lack of regard for ethics makes them reckless. Their Too Big to Fail mentality makes them reckless. The underlying Old Boys Club network is entitled, outdated and reckless.