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wells fargo
An Antidote to Despair: Climate and Labor Unite
Wells Fargo Workers United and Stop the Money Pipeline are teaming up to target one corporation that clearly doesn't care about everyday people: Wells Fargo.
Nov 01, 2025
Living in the United States right now, it's easy to feel rage and despair. Corporations and billionaires have amassed so much money and power that popular opinions held by everyday working people are no longer represented by our federal government, and corporations are freer than ever to do what they like.
The results are damning: rising costs of basic needs like healthcare, housing, insurance, and groceries, making them unaffordable. We are faced with increasingly dangerous extreme weather events, endangering our homes, businesses, and loved ones. We are exposed to more pollution and toxins in our air, water, and soil than ever before. On top of it all, our mandated tax dollars are being used to kill and starve children at home and abroad.
Now, we find ourselves asking: How can we possibly influence our government, these corporations, and the billionaire class to do the right thing? Our only choice is to work together: the climate and labor movement uniting to hit these corporations and billionaires where it hurts—their wallets.
Wells Fargo Workers United and Stop the Money Pipeline are teaming up to target one corporation that clearly doesn't care about everyday people: Wells Fargo. In February, despite its rank as the fifth largest funder of fossil fuels in the world in 2024, Wells Fargo publicly dropped its 2030 and 2050 climate goals. Wells Fargo has also been caught union busting, recently allegedly eavesdropping on bargaining. The bank has already faced over 30 Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges, and has been found violating workers’ rights on multiple occasions. Since its founding, Wells Fargo executives have proven that they will prioritize profit over people and the planet.
There’s a magical reality that happens when talking to people about the power they already have to impact a corporation and the world.
We won’t let them get away with it. If enough Wells Fargo workers join the union, they can withhold, or threaten to withhold, their labor, which could cost the company real revenue loss. Workers can then use this leverage to negotiate for higher wages, more staff, and an end to Wells Fargo’s funding of the climate crisis. This the first time that a union is forming at a US bank this large.
We’re seeing real momentum. Already, 28 Wells Fargo branches have voted to unionize and are actively engaging in bargaining. In August, over 30 people from communities facing the brunt of pollution from fossil fuel build-out in the Gulf South visited bank branches in San Francisco to inform workers about the union and Wells Fargo dropping its climate targets.
There’s a magical reality that happens when talking to people about the power they already have to impact a corporation and the world. We’ve seen workers light up when we share more about the support system of workers who feel the same way they do. They lift out of the drudgery of their daily routine, and sparkle with energy as we explore the possibility of change in their workplaces. In a time when so many of us are isolated, the opportunity to come together safely in person and affect real meaningful change can be so fulfilling, and even joyful. We need as many people as possible talking to Wells Fargo workers about the union to build the power we need to win.
This isn’t just about what we’re against, this is about what we fight for: a collective future where all of us can thrive, drink clean water, and breathe clean air; where workers unite to build power for better working conditions and climate policies. Any worker, anywhere, can take action. If you are a union member, or connected to any climate or labor organizing, talk to your leadership to see what you can do to build these bridges.
We won’t deny the challenges before us. It's true, stepping outside of your comfort zone is scary, but this is a space of growth and creativity. To create a better world, we have to do things that challenge ourselves and our status quo. As the saying goes, “Action is the cure for despair.” The only way to effectively protect our world and democracy is to stand together across climate and labor and fight back as one. It’s time that we embrace this moment together.Keep ReadingShow Less
We’re Going After Wells Fargo—Here’s Why
On August 15, we’re planning a nationwide day of actions at Wells Fargo’s headquarters, corporate offices, and branches across the country, to make it clear that the bank cannot bend the knee to Trump without massive backlash.
Aug 13, 2025
Since the Trump regime took power, corporations have been lining up to bend the knee—but no bank has done so as dramatically as Wells Fargo. So, on Friday August 15, we’re taking action to hold the bank accountable. Here’s why and how you can get involved.
Just weeks after the inauguration, Wells Fargo became the only major U.S. bank to completely abandon its 2030 and 2050 climate goals, despite warnings from experts that we are headed toward catastrophic climate harms. The timing was not a coincidence.
Investigative reporting from Rolling Stone caught members of the Texas attorney general’s office boasting about how they had “bullied” Wells Fargo into dropping some of its climate commitments. The officials threatened to pull lucrative business from the bank and even pursue litigation if Wells Fargo did not comply with their pro-fossil-fuel agenda. So comply, it did.
In the same week, the bank ended a policy requiring diversity in senior-level hiring, despite its record of systematic racial discrimination against job candidates. Wells Fargo has long come under fire for racist practices, from millions in fines for charging Black and Latine homebuyers higher mortgage rates to urging shareholders to vote against reporting on workplace discrimination and harassment.
Wells Fargo has done more to advance Trump’s agenda than any other bank on Wall Street. That’s why this summer, we’re holding the bank accountable.
Then, Wells Fargo unveiled to the Trump administration its scheme to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Their plan includes raising prices up to 140%, mass layoffs of unionized workers while slashing benefits for those remaining, and eliminating the unprofitable “Universal Service Obligation” to deliver mail to all U.S. addresses six days a week. A privatized post office would charge higher prices for worse service, while decimating good union jobs.
Not only is Wells Fargo caving to right-wing pressure, it is actively funding the fascist agenda, from mass deportations to genocide in Gaza. It is currently a lead banker on a $500 million revolving credit commitment to Palantir—a tech company that provides AI targeting technology to the Israeli military as it murders tens of thousands of Palestinians, and signed a $30 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to develop “ImmigrationOS,” a new immigrant surveillance software. Wells Fargo was also one of the financiers of a $500 million loan to Elbit Systems, a company that makes weapons and surveillance systems for the Israeli military and U.S. Customs and Border Protection alike.
This is not the first time Wells Fargo has funded colonialism and genocide—the bank was a major funder of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), despite fierce resistance from members of the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River tribal nations. Indigenous leaders have been fighting to get the pipeline—which is operating without a key permit—shut down ever since.
All the while, Wells Fargo is attempting to undermine unionization efforts, facing over 30 allegations of union busting, including the circulation of anti-union talking points from management, and attempts by senior executives to intimidate organizers. Twenty-eight bank branches have unionized so far, and workers continue to fight staff cuts, low pay, and poor benefits.
Under the helm of CEO Charles Scharf, who rakes in a $30 million salary, Wells Fargo has done more to advance Trump’s agenda than any other bank on Wall Street. That’s why this summer, we’re holding the bank accountable.
We’re demanding that Wells Fargo reinstate its climate targets, stop union busting, back off our public post office, commit to racial equity, and stop financing companies that are engaging in the war on immigrants and genocide in Gaza.
In July, our campaign kicked off with protests at the bank’s New York City and San Francisco offices, including seven activists who were arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. The actions were organized by Standing Rock and Cheyenne River members alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Arab Resource Organizing Center, and more than 100 climate activists.
On August 15, we’re planning a nationwide day of actions at Wells Fargo’s headquarters, corporate offices, and branches across the country, to make it clear that the bank cannot bend the knee to Trump without massive backlash.
In San Francisco, scientists and leaders from the Gulf South will shut down their headquarters for the fourth time in as many weeks. In Charlotte, where Wells Fargo has a major corporate office, faith leaders, alarmed by suffering to the planet and disregard for human dignity, will be delivering the message to several branches followed by a prayer vigil. In New York, communities will come together across movement spaces for a rally at Wells Fargo’s sumptuous corporate office building.
But it isn’t just in the cities where Wells Fargo has its corporate offices. All across the country, people will deliver a petition with tens of thousands of signatures to Wells Fargo. You can join an action near you, or sign up to organize an action of your own with support from our organizing team on August 15.
Wells Fargo has responded to pressure before: Following major public outcry, the bank announced in 2019 (during the last Trump term) that it would stop financing private prison companies. With the climate, labor, Indigenous rights, and Free Palestine movements joining forces, we can build the collective power needed to stop the fascist agenda.
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Morgan Stanley Latest Wall Street Giant to Ditch Net-Zero Coalition
Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup also said they were leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Jan 02, 2025
On Thursday, the Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley became the latest financial institution to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nations-convened group of banks committed to "aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."
The defections keep piling up. Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup said they were leaving the alliance, and earlier in December Goldman Sachs Group and Wells Fargo announced they were doing the same.
“We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed-emissions targets,” Morgan Stanley told Bloomberg in an email.
While Morgan Stanley didn't offer an explanation for the exit, according to Reuters, financial firms have repeatedly found themselves in the crosshairs of some members of the GOP who argue that corporate efforts to limit fossil fuels run afoul of antitrust law.
Last summer, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee published a report accusing financial institutions colluding to impose "radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals on American companies." Their probe was largely focused on another climate group, Climate Action 100+, which is made up of financial institutions who strive to engage companies they invest in on climate issues. That coalition has also experienced a number of defections.
In December, 11 GOP-led states sued three asset managers in federal court, arguing that the firms had "artificially constrained the supply of coal, significantly diminished competition in the markets for coal, increased energy prices for American consumers, and produced cartel-level profits" for the firms in violation of antitrust law.
Despite the stated goals of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Morgan Stanley and other firms who are a part of the alliance have remained a major financial life lines for fossil fuel companies.
According to a report published by a group of NGOs in 2023, 56 of the largest banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance—including Morgan Stanley—have provided nearly $270 billion in the form of loans and underwriting to more than 100 "major fossil fuel expanders," from Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil to Shell.
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