The labor union that's organizing workers at
The results have been delayed amid a challenge by San Francisco-based
But the Communications Workers of America said Friday that it has dropped its objection to
"Regardless of these stipulated ballots, the conduct management intake group won their union election," a union spokesman said in an email.
If the group decides to establish a union, the vote will represent a landmark in the effort to organize workers at the nation's fourth largest bank by asset size, expanding the union beyond branch workers.
Over the last year, workers at 23
"We respect our employees' rights to vote for or against union representation, and we will honor the outcome of any certified election," a
The still-pending votes were cast by members of the bank's conduct management intake team, who are spread out across the country, and are responsible for reviewing customer and employee complaints. They voted earlier this fall, shortly after 11 of the group's roughly four dozen employees were laid off, according to union organizers.
After the layoffs, the organizing group
The bank's spokesperson said the layoffs were not connected with union organizing efforts.
"We regularly review and adjust staffing levels to align with market conditions and the needs of our businesses. The decision was made earlier this year and has nothing to do with the union," the spokesperson said.
The employees whose unit voted to unionize act as gatekeepers for the bank's review of customer and employee complaints — an important role at a bank facing a high degree of regulatory scrutiny in the wake of various scandals.
Kieran Cuadras, who was an employee in the unit until she was laid off shortly before the union vote, said in a recent interview that she believes she and others were let go in retaliation for their union organizing efforts. She said that six of the 11 workers who were laid off were vocal union supporters.
"I think it was a way to thwart us from actually organizing," said Cuadras, who lives near Sacramento, California.
Eden Davis, an Arizona-based member of the conduct management intake team who is also a union supporter, was not laid off. But she shares her former co-worker's opinion about the bank's motive for the job cuts, saying that a majority of the employees who lost their jobs were outspoken advocates for unionization.
"So it really felt like they were getting rid of those people, and sprinkling in a few others for plausible deniability," Davis said in an interview. "These are people who have dedicated years, missing out on time with their kids, for a company that discarded them like trash."
The conduct management intake employees who want a union have cited multiple reasons, including what they've described as "staffing issues, a lack of transparency in enterprise policies, inconsistent training and job security concerns."
"We have persevered, but alarmingly, in the last few months those challenges have become near insurmountable," a group of 27 workers from the intake unit wrote in a Sept. 5 letter to
"Intake has faced additional hurdles stemming from miscommunications about location strategy, misleading information about enterprise initiatives and growth, constant policy changes and the revocation of work from home accommodations against the recommendations of employees' physicians," the employees wrote.
Cuadras pointed more specifically to offshoring as one of the motivations for the unionization push, saying that earlier this year the $1.9 trillion-asset bank moved some of the work previously done by members of her team to newly hired workers in India.
In an Oct. 3 email to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, Cuadras and 18 other members of her unit wrote that they routinely review customer allegations of improper denials of mortgage modifications, surprise overdraft fees, unlawful repossession of vehicles and more.
"Elimination of our positions, or slashing the positions in our department to such low levels that it will be impossible for us to effectively do our jobs, could make it extremely difficult to properly handle these complaints," the workers wrote.
A source familiar with the bank's position said that some existing work has been moved to global sites, which are staffed by
This source added that the bank has "effective controls" in place to confirm that "sensitive information" is handled properly and compliantly.
The unionization push has put
Members of the bank's intake team wrapped up voting on whether to form a union on Nov. 1, and the NLRB's certification of the results has been delayed by
NLRB case law and precedents support the position that the ballots should not be counted on that basis, the bank maintains.
But the union organizers note that after they dropped their objection to
A union spokesperson said that after Wells refused to sign the agreement, the NLRB rewrote it so that only the union's signature is required. "Now we are just waiting for the NLRB Regional Director to sign it and issue the final tally sheet," the union spokesperson said in an email.
Nick Weiner, who is organizing
"Contrary to their previous public statements, these actions reveal
Separately, Wells recently started contract talks with branch employees in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who earlier voted to unionize.
The terms of a contract that gets hammered out in Albuquerque could offer a blueprint for other branches that have voted to unionize. Or it might not, especially if Wells branch workers in different parts of the country diverge in their priorities. The
Weiner said in a recent interview that
The
"
The union organizing effort at
Polo Rocha contributed to this article.