courtesy c-span.org

“(Wells Fargo) can be the bank for America’s teachers, or it can be the bank for the NRA and gun manufacturers. But, given the NRA’s refusal to even help mitigate gun violence, Wells Fargo can’t be both.” And with that the American Federation of Teachers announced today that they’re ending their relationship with the San Francisco-based bank.

Last week the AFT jumped on the gun control pressure tactic train, announcing their desire to see Wells Fargo end any business it does with gun manufacturers. Unlike other big banks such as Bank of America, Wells’ CEO Timothy Sloan told the AFT to take a long walk off a short pier, responding, ” . . . I do not believe that the American public wants banks to decide which legal products consumers can and cannot buy.”

As a result, the AFT has decided to pull its business. Here’s their press release announcing the move . . .

AFT Severs Relationship with Wells Fargo over Guns

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced today that the union would cut ties with Wells Fargo, after CEO Tim Sloan failed to follow up on meeting with the union to discuss the bank’s relationship with the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers.

Earlier this month, the AFT released correspondence from Weingarten to Sloan outlining the union’s concerns about Wells Fargo’s connections with the NRA as well as its intention to stop offering Wells Fargo mortgages if Wells Fargo continues being the NRA banker.

The Wells Fargo mortgage program is part of the Union Privilege program, and approximately 1,600 AFT members have opted for these mortgages annually. More than 20,000 AFT members currently hold mortgages through the program. Today, the AFT will officially remove the bank from its list of approved lenders, sending a letter to each of its state federation leaders alerting them of the change. The AFT will urge other Union Privilege members to follow suit.

“Gun violence is an epidemic, but Tim Sloan won’t even engage in a conversation about mitigating it, much less take any real steps. We took him up on his offer to meet with us, then he went radio silent. So if Wells Fargo won’t value children and teachers above guns, we won’t do business with Wells Fargo,” Weingarten said. “It can be the bank for America’s teachers, or it can be the bank for the NRA and gun manufacturers. But, given the NRA’s refusal to even help mitigate gun violence, Wells Fargo can’t be both. Other companies, like Bank of America, BlackRock and Vanguard, have stepped up and engaged in meaningful conversations about what responsible relationships with gun companies look like, but Wells Fargo won’t. In fact, when we tried to schedule a meeting to discuss it, its friends at NRATV started launching vile attacks on teachers and personal attacks against me.

“We’re ending this relationship because we have a responsibility to our members and their students, who face potential gun violence every day. Gun violence is a public health epidemic, and in order to help stop it, we’ll stop the flow of resources to the companies that manufacture these weapons that have caused so much civilian carnage and death.”

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39 COMMENTS

  1. Yet another reason to get rid of NFA. If ATF is more interested in playing politics than processing my paperwork which was submitted last year them they shouldn’t be ha doing it at all…

  2. The AFT is essentially an organized crime syndicate that launders money for political action committees and progressive politicians.

    • SCOTUS is hearing the Janus case this term, it’s likely they will decide all public sector unions cannot force membership as a condition of employment. The Friedriches v. Cal teachers union case was a 4-4 tie a few years ago when Scalia died before the decision was issued. All the same judges are there except Gorsuch. It’s highly likely public unions will become right to work this year.

      The dem’s are going to lose a lot of forced campaign dues.

  4. Funny, ain’t it, that the AFT and its failed “education” system creates the school shooters and then blames a bank.

    Frankly, Wells Fargo should have demanded that the AFT get out of the education business or it would cease to do business with that scurvy gang of welfare queens.

    • AFT is not in the “education buisness” which they’ve been very clear about when pressed on the issue. They are in the ‘union buisness’ first, foremost and always.

    • Education system creates mass murdering monsters while the NRA provides real gun safety education.
      But NRA is the bad guy.

  5. What, no kudos to the NRA for rolling over on bump stocks? There’s a surprise.. geez, maybe it’s time to stop rolling over?

  6. The liberal base ATF can go jump in the bay. It’s run by the big city based educators and don’t speak for all their members. I live in a rural district and the educators there go hunting on the first day of deer season. But of course they are in the minority of the ATF.

  7. Go ahead AFT, you clueless dipshits. Pull your program. Wells will probably end up profiting from most of the mortgages originated by your members regardless of your attempts at financial blackmail. They’ll either buy them or end up collecting money via servicing arrangements on behalf of the originating bank.

    • +1

      Not sure the AFT realizes that teachers are typically getting small mortgages with very little profit off the interest portion of it.

      If I were Mr Sloan, I’d probably have a hard time keeping a straight face when threatened of potentially losing “all this.”

  8. Frankly, as a teacher with over ten years of experience, I do not recall any contact with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). I am familiar with, and a member of the National Education Association (NEA); but not the AFT.

    As a NEA member I am in frequent contact with with my local NEA representative. I can assure you that our local NEA steers clear of, and does not engage in, anti gun-owner rights activities.

  10. As rifle teams were done away with so were the education standards all across the country.
    It’s not surprising that the three L’s, Libertarians Liberals and the Left championed teaching how to put a condom on a cucumber. Along with other sex education subjects.
    But in all those decade’s they never supported firearm civil rights education.

    So the hated Christian parents started to home school their children and teach them about their firearm civil rights. Now the home schoolers number is over a million taught at home.

    The AFT is socialist progressive in their political orientation.

  11. I can not finish reading this nonsense. AFT are the teachers educating our children. Who educated them. Are teachers not obligated to teach our nation’s history ? Are they not supposed to teach the unbiased facts ? Without assumptions , and scare tactics. These so called teachers are invested in a debate they can not, must not win. What are they telling our children when they try to obliterate our constitution. I think the AFT need to be taught a lesson in history and ethics. They should go back to school themselves ,learn to stay out of politics. I say teach properly , or find a new line of work. McDonald’s is always looking for sheople. Or the long walk off a short pier would suffice.

  12. I would bank on Wells Fargo any day. AFT choose to try and bully the bank. You will lose the battle.

  13. Perhaps American parents dumps the Communist’s of American Federation of Teachers .

  15. We need an anti-leftist social media platform. Apparently, we also need a anti-leftist bank. I’m ready to use both. All market niches are eventually serviced.

  16. I wonder what decade people are living in when they say Gun Violence Is an Epidemic. Is it the 1970’s, 1980’s, or 1990’s. Most of the real gun violence is an epidemic decades are behind us looking at the data on homicides. It is just concentrated in gun control states and cities now, but the number of historic homicides are 50% lower than they were in those decades long past. What are they scared of?

    Of the 2,712,630 total deaths in 2015 (CDC), firearms make up less than 1 percent of the deaths in the United States each year according to CDC and FBI data with approximately 11,000 homicides in 2015. Gun control laws have not and do not curtail or restrict criminal activity in strict gun control states and cities across the United States, but has increased crime in urban areas. Do not make firearms the problem for crime when it is an urban plight, social and economic problem in urban areas across the United States that have not been addressed for decades.

    • J, gun grabbers simply lie to push their agenda. They believe that a lie becomes truth if it is repeated often enough. I guess they read it somewhere. In order to bring the progressive utopia to life, first they need to disarm the populace.

    • I have to tolerate that. I realize money laundering is against the law, but I don’t have a clue what it is, other than being pretty sure the crime did not *exist* when I was growing up in the 1960’s. At that time, also, you could go to the closing on a house with $50-100,000 (or whatever) in your pocket, and literally pay cash. It was a time honored absolute, anything you could buy, you could pay for with greenbacks. That disappeared at the same time I started hearing about “money laundering”, I think they’re connected. But could Wells Fargo (or I, for that matter) be somehow guilty of money laundering without ever intending to break the law? That would not surprise me.

  18. 1,600 mortgages generated by a nationally based labor organization is nothing in the finance buisness.

  19. If I were Tim Sloan, I would offer a discount to all teachers (and first responders) towards their closing costs. Individually, teachers love money and savings more than politics.

  20. Seeing as how you are not mitigating the stupidity of the students in your care, maybe we should end your relationship with the title “teacher” .

  22. Is it just me, or did they just make the case that teachers shouldn’t be forced to pay teacher’s union dues, because of the union’s political activities?

    • As I mentioned above, I have been working as a teacher for over ten years. I have never worked in a state where teachers were required to pay union dues.

      That being said, I am an NEA member. I am in frequent contact with with my local NEA representative. I can assure you that our local NEA steers clear of, and does not engage in, anti gun-owner rights activities.

  23. Hmmmm, can’t remember the why at the moment, but pretty sure Wells Fargo was on the gun owners’ shit list. How quickly we forget…

  24. Wells Fargo is one of the most corrupt banks in the country. …And it’s not just one scandal that earned them that reputation.

  25. Let’s not kid ourselves… all businesses will turn on any group of customers the moment it becomes politically or financially advantageous to do so. Their loyalty is to the dollar. And customers are generally distracted, with short memories.

    “Never again” only holds meaning when we remember why. If we as a species could actually retain that memory, we wouldn’t repeat the bad parts of history.

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