Though Wells Fargo had been pressuring its employees to commit fraud since 1998, firing those who couldn't make quota, as well as the whistleblowers who came forward to report the fraud, it wasn't until the Committee for Better Banks launched a unionization drive to organize retail banking workers against punitive sales quotas that the crimes came to light.
What's more, the union organizers didn't just discover impossible, fraud-inducing sales quotas at Wells Fargo; Bank of America and other retail banks have the same practices.
There's a growing realization, as confirmed by a report in June by the National Employment Law Project, that Landaverde's story is not unique, that widespread fraud driven by lofty sales quotas is industry-wide, and that paying fair wages and unionizing the banking sector—common practices in many other countries—is a critical way to begin fixing the sector from the bottom up.
First and Foremost, the Wells Fargo Scandal Is About Workers
[Justin Miller/American Prospect]
(via Naked Capitalism)
