A Union Push at JPMorgan Reveals Tensions Inside America’s Largest Bank

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, speaking in 2023 in front of ongoing construction for the bank’s new global headquarters. The 60-story tower is slated to open later this year. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)

At JPMorgan Chase, software developers and investment banking associates are among the supporters of a union facing long odds of recognition from the top.

Private group chats and internal message rooms started buzzing across JPMorgan Chase one morning this past spring after a firmwide email landed in employees’ in-boxes.

Changes were coming to the bank’s diversity, equity, and inclusion organization, said JPMorgan Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak in the March memo. The bank would run fewer workplace training sessions—which CEO Jamie Dimon has criticized as excessive—and rebrand the unit to “diversity, opportunity, and inclusion” while consolidating certain diversity-related groups.

Several employees told Barron’s that they have benefited from JPMorgan’s robust affinity networks, like its Pride group for the LGBTQ+ community, and are worried about losing funding for the efforts. Some told colleagues they were disappointed that the update followed the controversial executive order on diversity policies issued by President Donald Trump.

The pullback on diversity initiatives is just one issue for an unsettled employee base still reeling from the company’s decision to bring employees back to the office five days a week.

The five-day in-office mandate, issued in January, led some staff to begin the first formal union drive at the bank. In addition to preserving strong resource groups, the union is calling for better pay, more flexibility in work arrangements, and what they say is a fairer process for handling medical accommodation requests.

The union, called JPMC Workers Alliance, is likely to face a long, uphill battle in winning explicit concessions from the bank’s management. Still, a small but growing union drive represents a sea change for labor relations at America’s largest bank and the industry at large.

The U.S. finance industry has the lowest unionization rate of all private-sector industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at 0.8%. In 2021, the Committee for Better Banks, a unit of the Communications Workers of America, secured the first industry union contract in four decades at Beneficial State Bank, the small lender co-founded by former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer. (The union that represents Barron’s journalists is an affiliate of CWA.)

For a big bank, Wells Fargo offers the only blueprint in the U.S. for forming a union. Its employees are also working with the Committee for Better Banks.

After several years of organizing, the 200-person Wells Fargo Workers United has won union elections before the National Labor Relations Board at 28 branches and in the bank’s conduct-management intake department. The union is in the process of negotiating its first collective bargaining agreement.

Others may follow. Nick Weiner, organizing director of the Committee for Better Banks, said workers at Bank of America , PNC Financial Services Group , and other lenders have attended his team’s union-training classes, signed up for newsletters, and spoken “with our organizers about learning more.”

The union effort at JPMorgan fits into a wave of professionals’ organizing that Todd Vachon, an assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, sees as a response to Covid. Early in the pandemic, concerns over unsafe working conditions prompted a resurgence of organizing across industries. A swift rise in inflation then moved workers to organize more aggressively around wage growth trailing the cost of living. In a third phase, return-to-office policies have sparked a debate over the future of white-collar work, Vachon said.

Among the union’s supporters at JPMorgan are software engineers, developers, data analysts, investment banking associates, customer service representatives, and marketers in the U.S. and parts of the United Kingdom. In the U.S., they are working with the Committee for Better Banks.

Barron’s interviewed more than two dozen people, most of whom currently work at JPMorgan, and reviewed internal documents that provide a window into morale and employees’ motivations to unionize. Among other issues, the employees say their pay hasn’t kept pace with the firm’s strong financial performance.

Investors have few complaints. Shares of JPMorgan are up 36% over the past year. The company’s latest quarterly profits beat Wall Street’s expectations, and management raised its forecast for a key revenue driver. The numbers were “superiority on display,” wrote Bank of America’s bank research analyst last month.

Before the results, JPMorgan raised its dividend and authorized a new plan to buy back $50 billion in company stock.

Some 200 people have joined a private group about unionization on Discord, where users have to verify their identities as employees, Barron’s confirmed. Earlier this year, roughly 480 employees expressed support for forming a union in a survey hosted by the supporters of the organizing effort.

Employees mounting a public unionization campaign pose a thorny challenge to the leadership of a bank whose performance and brand recognition is broadly viewed by investors as best-in-class. The union is also a test of employee loyalty to Dimon, the country’s most prominent banker.

“We remain committed to our core principles, which includes our belief in the power of a diverse workforce, which strengthens our business and attracts our best talent,” a JPMorgan spokesman, who declined to comment on the employees’ union drive, told Barron’s. “We made changes to our diversity programs, much like we do with other aspects of our business—continuing to ensure they are effective and efficient, meet consumer demand, and are in line with current laws as they evolve.”

A rendering of 270 Park Ave., JPMorgan’s new global headquarters set to open later this year. (Courtesy DBOX/Foster + Partners)

JPMorgan’s New York employees will soon start moving into the bank’s 60-story global headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. The office tower, which will house up to 10,000 employees, was announced in 2018, before the pandemic forced new approaches to work and triggered a reassessment of office space.

In February, Dimon defended the company’s five-day in-office plan, saying remote work was hurting younger generations of workers and creating virtual meetings full of distracted colleagues. In an internal town hall meeting, which was heard by Barron’s, he said with his signature candor that he sometimes couldn’t get hold of people by phone: “And don’t give me this s—— that work-from-home-Friday works. I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get hold of.”

Frustrated employees have made the office debate a centerpiece of their unionization campaign. “Hold teams accountable for business outcomes, not for the number of minutes spent at the office,” the union says on its website. “This does not mean working any less, or slacking off. It means working in the times, places, and methods that most effectively achieve business objectives. We deserve the freedom to choose when and for how long we’re in-office. We also deserve a culture of mutual trust.”

The return-to-office debate was reflected in JPMorgan’s latest employee survey, which has been conducted annually for years, and was recently completed by some 90% of JPMorgan’s 317,000 employees.

In the survey, management requests feedback on topics like career growth, tolerance in the workplace, and whether teams are maintaining high standards.

In a memo from Dimon and human resources head Robin Leopold, they called out the lowest scores in the survey: 71% saw career mobility opportunities, 72% view their well-being as a company priority, and 73% have good work-life balance.

In the memo, which was viewed by Barron’s, Dimon and Leopold acknowledged the impact of the office return. It has “been an adjustment and one that not everyone agrees with, but we continue to believe in-person is how we do our best work and how we foster connections and mobility opportunities,” they wrote.

They also called out the most favorable responses: 93% said derogatory comments aren’t tolerated on their team, and 92% said they focus on clients’ best interests and act with integrity.

“Each year, we conduct an anonymous employee opinion survey and take actions where needed based on feedback,” said the JPMorgan spokesman of firmwide results. “Our Employee Opinion Survey scores were very positive across the board this year, with more than 91% of the questions scoring at least 80% favorable and more than half exceeding external benchmarks.”

Employees’ desire for work-life balance and career advancement opportunities showed up as relative weak points across various parts of the bank, including the company’s prosperous commercial and investment bank. The business, known as CIB internally, includes the firm’s traders, dealmakers, and securities-services teams.

In a previously unreported memo, the unit’s co-CEOs, Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh, highlighted the challenges: “Although the CIB received high overall scores, survey results indicate that maintaining a healthy work-life balance continues to be a challenge for some, and opportunities for career growth remain top of mind.”

Write to Rebecca Ungarino at rebecca.ungarino@barrons.com