FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Protests erupt across the country as tens of thousands urge Wells Fargo to stop siding with forces of authoritarianism
Contact: Alice Hu, alice@planetoverprofit.org
San Francisco, CA / New York, NY –– On Friday August 15th, faith leaders, scientists, and environmental justice leaders participated in protests targeting Wells Fargo’s headquarters, corporate offices, and branches in at least fourteen cities across the country. At many protests, activists delivered a petition signed by more than 40,000 people urging Wells Fargo to reinstate its climate goals and stop union busting, among other demands.
In San Francisco, activists wrapped Wells Fargo’s HQ in nearly 4,000 feet of “climate crime scene” tape, dropped a massive banner, and blockaded the building for nearly two hours.
“Wells Fargo funds fossil fuel projects that worsen public health emergencies, from the heat deaths of workers here in California’s Central and San Joaquin Valleys to the illnesses and deaths associated with intensifying hurricanes and floods in the Eastern US and the Gulf Coast,” said Dr. Paul English, retired epidemiologist and former Director at the Public Health Institute, who spoke at the San Francisco event.
Participants in the protest in San Francisco also included a dozen community members from the Gulf South, an area of the United States that is currently experiencing the world’s largest buildout of new fossil fuel projects and petrochemical facilities, exacerbating the already devastating levels of environmental racism and environmental pollution in the region. According to data from Bloomberg, Wells Fargo is the world’s largest funder of fossil fuels so far in 2025.
“For a long time the battlecry of these site fights was ‘not in my backyard’ but we’re here to say ‘not in anyone’s backyard!’ We need to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and petrochemicals and these banks have got to stop funding it,” said Katherine Hahn with the Gulf South Fossil Finance Hub, a network of community members impacted by environmental injustice campaigning on the financial sector.
In Charlotte, the city with more Wells Fargo employees than any other, faith leaders delivered the petition to multiple branches, and held a vigil at the bank’s main offices in the city.
“As people of faith, we are called to show compassion and to protect our planet and our people from harm,” said Reverend Amy Brooks Paradise, who led a protest in Charlotte, North Carolina. “By financing new fossil fuels, dropping its climate goals and engaging in the kind of union busting that pits it against the working class, Wells Fargo poses a grave threat to our climate and our communities alike. We’re here to ask them to change course.”
In New York, a rally and civil disobedience protest will begin at Wells Fargo’s corporate office at 5PM ET this evening. There were also protests in Annapolis, MD, Hartford, CT, Los Angeles, CA, Newark, NJ, Oceanside, CA, Portland, OR, Reno, NV, Seattle, WA, Tucson, AZ, and Washington, DC.
Today’s protests come after Wells Fargo became the only bank to drop its 2030 and 2050 climate goals within weeks of Trump taking office. While other banks have left climate alliances or changed the way they talk about climate change since Trump’s election victory, Wells Fargo is the only bank to have dropped its climate targets altogether.
Recent investigative reporting from Rolling Stone caught members of the Texas Attorney General’s office boasting about how they had “bullied” Wells Fargo into dropping some of its climate commitments.
Around the same time as it dropped its climate goals, Wells Fargo also walked away from its DEI goals and sent a private memo to the Trump Administration, outlining plans to privatize the post office. Wells Fargo is also facing more than 30+ allegations of union busting, as twenty-eight of its branches have recently voted to unionize.
In the coming months, a broad coalition will continue to push Wells Fargo to reinstate its climate goals, stop union busting, and stop financing companies killing both people and the planet.
This will include an effort that will see hundreds of climate activists take action to support the unionization effort at Wells Fargo. To support the union campaign, climate activists have set a goal of talking to Wells Fargo workers in at least 200 branches about the union by the end of August.
“Labor and the climate movement are natural partners, because the working class are going to be the people who are affected soonest and most negatively by the consequences of global climate change,” said Cole Weber, a Wells Fargo Workers United-CWA member and a former Wells Fargo employee at the call center in Hillsboro, Oregon. “Wells Fargo leadership won’t do the right thing on their own, but by working together, we can leverage the power of workers to pressure them into taking a longer-term view of their actions and how they affect the world as a whole.”
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