By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – Wells Fargo was accused of sex discrimination in a lawsuit by a bond saleswoman who said the fourth-largest U.S. bank denied pay and promotions to men and tolerated an “unashamedly sexist” workplace.
Michal Leavitt’s complaint filed Friday in federal court in Chicago is the latest in a long line of lawsuits accusing major U.S. banks of bias against women.
Leavitt said Wells Fargo’s practice of forwarding larger bills to men in the financial institutions group cost her up to a third of her potential pay and forced her to wait nine years for a promotion to director from vice president.
She said she felt frustrated about missing out on large bills, but was told her predominantly male group viewed her as just a “second income” for her husband.
Leavitt also said that male managers routinely had inappropriate sexual relationships with female subordinates, and that men often made derogatory jokes about women, including about their appearance and how their wives were merely “spending their husbands’ money.”
“The financial institutions group is a self-proclaimed ‘boys club’ where locker room talk on the sales floor is the norm,” creating an “unashamedly sexist work environment,” Leavitt said.
Wells Fargo had no immediate comment.
Leavitt joined the San Francisco-based bank from Bear Stearns in 2013. The Illinois resident is seeking unspecified damages and changes to the way Wells Fargo allocates accounts.
Last November, Citigroup was sued by Chief Executive Ardith Lindsey, who said the third-largest U.S. bank tolerated a “notoriously hostile” work culture in which a former top banker subjected her to sexual harassment and death threats.
Remove ads
.
And last May, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $215 million to settle a class action over widespread bias against women in pay and promotion.
Wells Fargo has spent years trying to recover from a series of customer mistreatment scandals.
These scandals led to billions of dollars in fines, the ouster of two top executives and a still-standing Federal Reserve cap on assets that limits the bank’s growth.
The case is Leavitt v. Wells Fargo Securities LLC, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 24-03140.
