Sen. Warren Accuses Dept. of Labor of Taking Down Wells Fargo Complaint Website

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

A special website created as a resource for current and former Wells Fargo employees on workplace issues, including whistleblower retaliation complaints, has been removed by the Dept. of Labor, according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The website was set up by former Labor Secretary Tom Perez last September after Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $190 million to settle regulators’ claims that it created as many as 2 million unauthorized customer accounts in order to meet sales targets.

Some of the bank’s employees filed whistleblower complaints with the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Some said they had been fired for reporting the fraudulent accounts; others complained that they were forced to work late to meet sales quotas.

Perez had promised a review of all the Wells Fargo complaints to see how they were handled. On Friday Warren asked for an update on that review. Sources said that OSHA’s San Francisco office, which handled the bulk of the Wells Fargo complaints, faced a particularly high case load to staff ratio.

Two of the Wells Fargo whistleblowers, Yesenia Guitron and Judi Klosek, are among the candidates for Constantine Cannon’s “Whistleblower of the Year.”

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