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Final Artifact - Behavior/Ethics/Leadership II

Jon Guerrero

Behavior/Ethics/Leadership II

Scott Sparrow

October 7, 2022
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Numerous technological advancements have been made in recent years in the banking

industry to make it easier for the financial giants to exploit their employees. The rise of online

banking, automated teller machines (ATMs), and mobile banking have made it easier for users to

do the banking on the go. This has given the customers access to banking virtually anywhere

they are, thus giving banks the opportunity to cut back on employees while giving the current

employees more tasks to accomplish. Due to this turn of events, financial corporations have seen

huge increase in profits while their employees have been left feeling overworked and underpaid.

Furthermore, the financial industry’s globalization has banks operating in different parts

of the world with the number of countries within an institution increasing across international

borders. There are many banks that operate in different countries of the world like BBVA,

HSBC, and Citigroup to name a few. Due to this expansion of global financial markets, financial

institutions have taken advantage of other countries’ lower wages and fewer regulations to

further benefit their earnings. Following this trend, workers in developed nations have been dealt

a devastating setback as a result of the outsourcing of their employment to other nations. This

could be like call center reps being laid off because their jobs got outsourced to The Philippines

or India where English-speaking natives will take the job for a lower wage than someone

working in the United States. Even for Spanish-speaking representatives could be laid off and

their jobs could be sent off to another Spanish speaking country. Situations like these keep

saving the financial corporations millions of dollars in wages thus increasing their profits even

more.

The financial industry has seen the wage gap increase year after year in recent history due

to these events unfolding. The corporate leaders are making astronomical wages while
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employees are barely making enough to take care of their basic needs. The stockholders are

prospering while the employees are carrying an ever-heavier burden. Employees must come

together, and demand enhanced working conditions and reasonable wages for their imbalanced

and unreasonable treatment. Bank of America’s statement, “We’ve increased our U.S. minimum

hourly wage to $22 on the way to $25 by 2025” (Pavell, 2022) may seem like they are providing

for their employees but compared to “increased base salaries for its managing directors in

investment banking and markets to $500,000 from $400,000” (Doherty & Natarajan, 2022) that

raise seems insignificant. By the time inflation gets calculated in, it’ll be the same thing as before

and people will keep needing more.

You are aware that the purchasing and selling of labor power is the foundation of our

business, which is an industry. This indicates that in order for capitalists to make a profit, they

have no choice but to pay workers a wage that is below the worth of the labor they perform. This

leads to an ever-increasing income inequality between capitalists and workers, such that workers

continue to work harder but are nonetheless rewarded with fewer salaries and, as a result, a lower

quality of life. The upshot of this is that workers have a lower standard of living.

Although many of the financial industry workers see that they might be underpaid and

undervalued, to some it might seem normal. These people might be coming from a different field

where they could potentially be earning less, so to them it is actually a good move. There might

be no reason for them to complain as they might see that they are making a better living than

before. These members could be made unaware of their exploitation by management in

numerous ways. Their job duties might get more work added to them and management could say

it is to enhance the customer experience and increase the speed of transactions. The firms are
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also always updating policies and procedures which adds more work to employees and are often

kept unaware of the nature of their exploitation. By making small changes here and there, firms

can all of a sudden have a huge list of extra tasks for the individual to perform. There are also

those within the financial sector that defend the wage gap by asserting that it is necessary for the

sector to function and hence cannot be altered. What people often tend to forget is that banks

hold the funds of consumers and businesses, and they invest that money to make more money on

top of it as well. So, when the bank lends you for a mortgage, they charge you an interest rate

that is sometimes similar to paying off the home itself, again increasing their bottom line even

more.

Nonetheless, we cannot accept these forms of exploitations any longer. These acts are not

set in stone and are avoidable by simply paying people what they are worth. If increasing the

tasks is necessary, then increase the pay. Marx mentions, “that work in a capitalist society is

inherently alienating. This is so, he said, because workers do not design the products they build,

…and because workers are treated by their employers as mere commodities to be hired and fired

at will” (Creative Commons). We will no longer be tolerating this form of abuse from the

financial giants and will be forced to take action against all forms of exploitations from them.

We will stand against being used as products to that add to their wealth. We are entitled to

equality in the workforce and to be compensated justly according to our tasks in order to

maintain a well-rounded form of living and keep achieving a high level of work that is desired

from our behalf. We must be paid accordingly to maintain a meaningful style of living that

honors the work that we put in every day.

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What we want to change is how we are treated and how we are paid. We deserve the

same respect that managing directors get. Although, we are not saying that leading an

organization of such magnitudes does not constitute fair pay for them, we want the same level of

appreciation according to what we contribute to the organization. How can someone be awarded

$500,000 a year, in some cases even more, when their hardest working individuals are making

$32,000 on the low end?

Some tools that financial institutions can provide for their employees could be training in

place to help them get a higher position with potentials to earn more. Paying for their employees

to go back to school could also help individuals raise their skills and abilities to move forward in

their career and reap in the benefits that come with career mobility.

Widening wealth gaps, which are only going to become worse over time, present a

serious problem for our country. The wealth disparity between wealthy and underprivileged

keeps growing. We have a duty as workers to ask for fair practices that will give us a

comfortable work environment and living wages, and you have a responsibility as financial

institutions to work toward a more just and equitable society, one that values labor and pays

people a wage that enables them to live comfortably. With this, we end by saying that we hope

you will do right by us and help us achieve the level of comfort we deserve, so that we can keep

providing for our families and working towards assisting our customers the best way possible.
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References:

Doherty, K., & Natarajan, S. (2022). BofA Increases Base Pay to Keep Top-Tier
Bankers. Bloomberg.Com, 4729, N.PAG. 

Pavell, M. (2022). $22 in 2022: We’ve increased our U.S. minimum hourly wage to $22 on the
way to $25 by 2025. Fort Worth Business Press, 34(13), 3.