The financial services firm terminated the Chicago-area manager after they repeatedly contacted superiors and a corporate ethics hotline about purported directions to falsify customer information, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleged.
“Wells Fargo has zero tolerance for acts of retaliation, and employees are encouraged to report concerns which will be promptly and thoroughly investigated,” a spokesperson said Thursday. The company disagrees with the OSHA findings and plans to appeal to an administrative law judge, the spokesperson said.
The fired worker also accused Wells Fargo managers of engaging in “price fixing and interest rate collusion through exclusive dealing,” according to OSHA’s press release.
The company fired the ex-manager in 2019 and later attributed the termination to a restructuring process. But OSHA investigators determined the firing wasn’t consistent with Wells Fargo’s treatment of other managers removed as part of the same initiative, the release said.
Evidence shows the company “took retaliatory action against this senior manager for repeatedly expressing concerns about financial management they believed violated federal laws,” said Doug Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act protects employees from retaliation in these very circumstances and the Department of Labor will not tolerate employers who violate the law and illegally terminate workers that exercise their rights under the law.”
The $22 million includes back pay, interest, front pay, lost bonuses and benefits, and compensatory damages, according to the release. OSHA doesn’t disclose the names of employees involved in whistleblower complaints.
Wells Fargo and the former manager have 30 days to object to the findings and appeal.
—With assistance from Bloomberg Law Automation.
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