Winning: NYC Cuts Off Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo – among other sleazy practices – finances the Dakota Access pipeline.

After NYCC organized pressure on Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer, they cut the bank off, ending the City’s banking business with Wells for at least a year.

Here’s how we won: for years, the Committee for Better Banks, which NYCC helps lead, has battled Wells Fargo (the bank’s fake accounts scandal came to light through this campaign). Since Wells Fargo also funds the Dakota Access pipeline, we decided to target the bank in support of the indigenous communities fighting to protect their water and land. NYCC researchers Cea Weaver and Jose Gonzalez analyzed the City’s records, showing that Wells benefitted from a variety of NYC business, including bond business and traditional banking services.

We then organized over 30 groups to write to the Mayor and Comptroller, who direct the city’s banking business. Working with indigenous groups and other allies, we put together a series of protests, including an overnight encampment outside a Wells Fargo and a march on City Hall. NYCC played the lead role organizing these events, which all generated media coverage and social media that pressured the elected officials.

The first sign that the dam was breaking was at a 600-person accountability forum on climate change, jobs and justice, which NYCC had proposed and organized. Comptroller Stringer was under pressure from our main divestment campaign, which was pushing the city’s pension funds to drop *all* fossil fuel and pipeline investments. At the forum, under pointed questioning from the big crowd, Comptroller Stringer hinted that he’d consider re-evaluating the city’s business with Wells Fargo. The Mayor also told media at an unrelated press conference that he’d be open to punishing the banks financing Dakota Access. A few weeks later we won when the Banking Commission quietly announced it would pull its banking business from Wells Fargo. We could not have won without local indigenous leaders’ willingness to join with NYCC in these protests – and without so many non-indigenous NYC activists’ fight against Dakota Access. And of course this fight was sparked by the Standing Rock Sioux’s courageous stand against the pipeline. They are heroes to us. Nonetheless, we are reasonably certain that without our organizing and campaign work, New York City would not have pulled its banking business from Wells Fargo. It’s our first concrete victory for our new program fighting climate change and inequality!