Campaign News

Washington, D.C.'s think tanks produce a tsunami of studies, reports and manifestos. Most of it has a readership that, outside of wonks and reporters, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

It truly matters that this not be the fate of a new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Fed Up, and the Center for Popular Democracy.

Read the full article here.

The Committee for Better Banks (CBB), a Communications Workers of America (CWA)-affiliated community and labor coalition, was created in 2013 to put an end to that. Cassaundra Plummer, a Maryland-based CBB member currently employed as a bank teller at TD Bank, told In These Times, “A lot of the issues within the banks are not discussed, they’re kept really quiet. As a young woman, I always thought that working at a bank was more of a prestigious job than retail. Once I actually got into banking, I realized that it’s not a whole lot different.”

The CBB, which has grown from eight lead members in April to approximately 60 in six different states today, with thousands more either engaged through petition signing or attending rallies. CBB is hoping to expand and create a critical mass of organized workers by bringing these issues out in the open. 

A study released by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) early this month shored up CBB claims, finding that 30.4% of the 1.7 million retail banking employees across the country—more than 500,000 workers—are paid less than $15 an hour. Nearly three-quarters of low-wage bank workers are bank tellers, 84.3% of which are women.

Another report, published by the UC Berkeley Labor Center last year, found that these low-wages led 31% of bank teller families toward enrolling in public assistance programs (compared to 25 percent of the entire workforce). “The cost of public benefits to families of bank tellers is nearly $900 million per year,” says the report.

Though it was labeled an “occupational winner” by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its 84% throughout its growth in the 1970s, the introduction and proliferation of automated teller machines helped put the brakes on that, leading to a projected 1% growth over the next decade. As Timothy Noah noted for Slate in 2010, banks tellers earn “slightly less than [they] did in 1970,” putting the job at the center of wage stagnation that has become common-place throughout the middle class, especially within the context of expectations of higher productivity.

CEO compensation and executive pay indeed remain at worrying heights. The NELP report found that CEOs of Wells Fargo and Bank of America made amounts equal to more than 500 times the annual earnings of an average bank teller. Stephen Lerner, the architect of SEIU’s famed Justice for Janitors campaign, summed up the wealth disparity among bankers at the top and bottom of the pay brackets in a 2010 New Labor Forum article, writing, “We could increase pay by $2.00 per hour and provide employer-paid health insurance for over 550,000 tellers with just 3.6 percent of the bonuses paid out to executives.”

“The constant focus on making more forces the people working in the bank to take on more work, but we’re being paid the same amount,” says Plummer. “We’re not expecting to become wealthy off of entry-level positions. But the corporations make a lot of money off of the things that we do—the sales goals, and all that we have to do to create wealth for the bank. It should be reciprocated back to the employees.”

By shifting traditional banking services toward automation, low-wage bank workers such as bank tellers and personal bankers have also become the frontline for pushing financial products on to customers in an effort to increase profits. The pressure of sales quotas imposed by management and executives at the top keeps low-wage bank workers under more scrutiny than ever before. Customer service employees in retail banks must not only attempt to hook patrons onto core retail banking services like checking and savings accounts, but must also resort to hawking mortgages and credit cards in ways CBB organizers say can be predatory. Tellers risk termination if they fail to meet quotas for such products.

“Wells Fargo creates an environment of hostility and humiliation. Multiple times I witnessed management behaving in a condescending fashion to those who did not meet ‘goals’ even though their customer service was excellent. Wells no longer cares about customer service or the best interest of their customers; they are only looking to push products and most of the time they are unnecessary products,” one bank employee told the Committee of Better Banks when they surveyed 5,000 workers for the aforementioned study at the group’s conception.

According an April 2015 report by the Center for Popular Democracy, since 2011, 17 different lawsuits across the top five banks in the country (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and US Bank) have been settled for nearly $46 billion, “highlighting a range of alleged illegal and unethical business practices.”

A 2013 Los Angeles Times investigation reported that the pressure of sales goals, which increase U.S retail banks’ profits, has led some bank workers to commit fraud, forging signatures, opening secret checking accounts with fees attached, or even credit lines for customers in order to keep up with their sales goals. This has led to lawsuits from customers and even cities decrying the rigid and unfair sales culture fostered by the banking industry. When these practices become public, banks fire employees and managers in alleged attempts to uphold ethical finance.

But as Khalid Taha, one of the first Committee members in California, currently employed at Wells Fargo in San Diego, describes it, the “impossible” sales goals come from the top and workers ultimately have no other option. “They fire the entry level employees which is us, but if you think about it, yes we are responsible for it, but we are also victims,” says Taha. “We have to keep our jobs, pay our rent. We have no way but to go a little bit shady when we deal with our customers because the company wants to meet their quota. They don’t care how.”

Beyond low pay, CBB has been working to connect these pressurized work environments to their detrimental effects on the economy caused by the bank’s business practices.

The top four retail banks in the country (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo), part of the too-big-to-fail banking institutions that some, like presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, have called to be broken up, now collectively possess assets equivalent to 45% of the U.S economy, a slight increase than what it was in 2008 before that year’s financial crisis.

Lerner, who is currently advising CBB as a fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, told In These Times, “This campaign is different from many union campaigns that say ‘our sole goal is winning better conditions for workers.’ Those campaigns are important, [but] in this case we’re saying that you can’t win better conditions for workers unless you reform the industry—and you can’t reform the industry unless workers are helping reform it.”

At an April 2015 rally in Minnesota where they delivered 11,000 signatures on a petition calling for an end to sales goals, the Committee for Better Banks released a proposed bill of rights for bank workers. One of the planks of the bill addresses what they say is community suffering at the hands of banks: “We must eliminate unreasonable sales goals or performance metrics that force us to push unnecessary products on our customers. We are here for our neighbors—for the child who opens his first savings account, for the newlywed couple planning ahead to retirement, for the senior citizen opening a credit card. We want to be honest brokers of your financial security, and that means an end to pressure tactics that only serve to line shareholders’ pockets.”

“We’re at the very beginning of a baby-steps campaign to build working support for the idea that we need to do two things, and that come simultaneously: We need to address how bank workers unfairly—low pay, etc., but we need to connect with how the finance industry behaves is bad for the overall economy,” Lerner says.

In 2010, Lerner was launching SEIU’s new plan to organize bank workers. Mike Elk described that effort as emanating from his realization that banks influenced the rest of labor organizing through its close connections to the pensions and investment banks that intertwined with financial decisions made not only by workers but their communities, as well.

At the time, fellow journalist Steve Early told Elk, “[Successful organizing] require[s] a long-term commitment that few unions are willing to make, even when dealing with a strategic multinational target that’s not going away.” Lerner left SEIU later that year under disputed circumstances, and his work organizing bank employees was abandoned by the union.

CEO and President of union-owned Amalgamated Bank, Keith Mestrich announced in early August that the bank’s employees would be making at least $15 an hour under their new collective bargaining agreement. He told Buzzfeed, “We think it’s the right thing for our bank to do, and frankly we think it’s the right thing for all banks to do. … If any industry in this country can afford to set a new minimum for its workers, it’s the banking industry.”

But in the rest of the nonunionized retail banking industry, CBB, like the Fight for 15 and OUR Walmart, will be agitating for improvements.

“It was a little bit scary at the beginning, but we have to do it. If we don’t talk then the banks will do whatever they want to do,” says Taha.

Source: In These Times

Labor Day has started the sprint to the November election. And with more than 40 percent of U.S. workers struggling on less than $15 an hour, our economy’s tilt toward low-paying jobs has become a top economic issue this year.  

Now, as GOP leaders fret that Donald Trump may drag down Republican incumbents, turning more U.S. Senate races into toss-ups, the Republican majority’s stonewalling of any action to raise the federal minimum wage could cost the party control of Congress.

New polling shows that close to 70 percent of voters in key swing states want an increase in the federal minimum wage—and that 60 percent or more support a $15 minimum wage in six of the seven states polled.

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Even more, the polling shows that candidates’ positions on raising pay could play a pivotal role in this year’s electoral battles for control of the U.S. Senate. The results show that the incumbent Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose critical support—and even their seats—over opposition to raising wages for working people.

In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Democratic challengers Katie McGinty, Russ Feingold and Governor Maggie Hassan strengthened their leads over incumbent Republican Senators Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson and Kelly Ayotte when voters were made aware of the senators’ opposition to raising the minimum wage.  

And in Arizona, Missouri and North Carolina, Democratic challengers Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, Jason Kander and Deborah Ross pulled ahead of Senators John McCain, Roy Blunt and Richard Burr, flipping those contests on their heads, when voters learned of the senators’ track records opposing raises.  

For example, in Arizona—where John McCain has just emerged from his toughest re-election primary ever—a 43-43 tie turns into a 44-38 lead for Kirkpatrick once voters hear about McCain’s opposition to raising pay.

The polling comes as the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, the Working Families Organization and other grassroots groups in seven states begin to mobilize voters.

The coalition plans to engage in canvassing, hold candidate forums and wage debate protests, among other actions, to educate and energize voters around candidates’ positions on the raising the minimum wage.

While Donald Trump, who has been all over the map on the minimum wage, has announced he now supports an increase to $10, most Republicans in Congress remain opposed.

Leading Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s firm LuntzGlobal has warned minimum wage opponents, “If you’re fighting against the minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle, because most Americans, even most Republicans, are OK with raising the minimum wage.”

Farm workers pick vegetables on a farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California, on August 31. Paul Sonn writes that Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose their seats over opposition to raising wages.

While Congress has refused to act, over the past three and a half years, more than 50 states, cities and counties, as well as individual companies, have stepped forward to approve minimum wage increases, delivering raises to 17 million workers.  

And 10 million of those workers are in states or cities that have approved phased-in $15 minimum wages, raising pay for more than one in three workers in California and New York and beginning to reverse decades of growing pay inequality.

Historically, raising the minimum wage enjoyed the same bipartisan backing in Congress that it does with voters. But over the past 20 years, increasing polarization in Washington and the growing role of money in politics have led many Republicans to abandon their support.

As a result, the federal minimum wage today remains frozen at just $7.25 an hour. And taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab, as low-wage workers in the seven states just polled must rely on $150 billion per year in public assistance to make up for their inadequate paychecks.

Candidates’ positions on the minimum wage have made a difference in close U.S. senate races before. Ten years ago, in Missouri and Montana, Democrats Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester successfully used their support for a higher minimum wage to highlight the difference between them and their opponents, Republican Senators Jim Talent and Conrad Burns, who both opposed raising the wage.  

McCaskill and Tester rode the issue to an Election Day victory, helping to break a logjam in Congress and delivering the first federal minimum wage increase in 10 years in 2007.

With the public demanding action to boost pay, the Republican majority and individual candidates this fall face a clear choice: stop standing in the way of a long overdue federal minimum wage increase—or risk their political future.

By Paul K. Sonn

Source

New York's Department of Financial Services is seeking information from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., BNP Paribas SA, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Standard Chartered Plc on shell companies established through a law firm in Panama, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. The investigation came after the Panama Papers leak about global banks using law firm Moasack Fonseca & Co. to set up anonymous shell companies. The data behind the leaks was made public this week by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The massive leak put a spotlight on the possible use of shell companies for tax evasion and other purposes. The White House's Office of Management and Budget accepted the final review of a FinCEN Treasury rule last month that would require banks to identify owners of shell companies.

Rick Aragon, AML compliance manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said in an interview that the rule will increase compliance costs and complexity for banks. The new obligation for banks to identify and verify beneficial owners will affect system processes and could ultimately impact the risk profile of banks, he said.

"There's all sorts of different downstream processes that are going to be impacted by this," he said.

While offshore accounts are already considered high-risk, the publicity of the accounts will cause banks to re-evaluate whether or not they want to take on this type of business, he added.

The House Science, Space, and Technology's Oversight Subcommittee is investigating the FDIC's slowness to report data breaches that were later deemed as posing a major cybersercurity risk. The FDIC has reported seven security breaches since October 2015, all related to employees leaving the agency and downloading data on personal external devices. Lawrence Gross, chief information officer and chief privacy officer at the FDIC, testified at a May 12 hearing that the agency has taken steps to mitigate further breaches, but Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said he does not think the agency is taking the breaches seriously.

Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton said she supports increasing diversity at the Federal Reserve and removing bankers from the board of directors, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Her comments were made in response to a letter from 127 legislators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, asking Chair Janet Yellen to improve leadership diversity. "As the Board of Governors embarks on its search for regional bank directors to serve beginning in 2017, and as you consider future regional president vacancies, we urge you to engage in an inclusive process to consider candidates from a diverse set of backgrounds, including a greater number of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, women, and individuals from labor, consumer, and community organizations," the lawmakers wrote. The group cited a Center for Popular Democracy study that found 83% of Fed head office board members are white and three-fourths of regional bank directors are male.

Chatter:

The argument between JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman, President and CEO Jamie Dimon and Independent Community Bankers of America President Camden Fine heated up this week after Dimon called Fine a "jerk" on CNBC. Fine retorted that Dimon's language was that of a junior high-schooler.

Dimon's comments were made in response to statement Fine made April 9. "Just because Jamie Dimon says 'let's sing kumbaya' doesn't mean community banks are going to just line-up like a Greek chorus," Fine said in response to an op-ed Dimon wrote, calling banks of all sizes to unite.

Legislation/regulation:

The Office of Financial Research outlined best practices for data collection by regulators, including the agencies composing the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Among common pitfalls it pointed out in regulatory data collection were a failure to use existing industry standards, missing or incomplete data requirements, inadequate instructions and preparation, and a lack of resources to support institutions reporting the data.

The OFR suggested more collaboration among data collectors and noted that regulators' collection processes should be designed to be comprehensive and attentive to detail while also having a foundation of simplicity.

The OFR also released a study in which it compared the reported credit standards in the Fed's senior loan officer opinion survey to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. It found that the survey results have "the expected relationships" with actual denial rates at banks and economic conditions such as delinquency rates and home prices in MSAs where credit tightening occurs.

The House Financial Services Committee could soon introduce a bill that would provide regulatory relief for community banks if they meet a certain capital threshold. Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, said in an interview Wednesday that the bill would also include a dual mandate for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers and encourage access to credit.

The Treasury Department wants to work with Congress to pass legislation overseeing and providing protection for borrowers in the marketplace lending industry. In a white paper reviewing the industry, the Treasury stated that to ensure market soundness prudent loan underwriting, securitization transaction pricing, and robust governance and disclosures are necessary. The paper also recommended that online lenders should promote a transparent marketplace for borrowers and investors, ensure safe and affordable credit through partnerships, and support robust and effective oversight.

By Moriah Costa

Source