Sloan Alone
The other CEOs sought to separate themselves from Wells, Waters said.
“Some of the other banks did not even want to be on the same hearing panel with him -- that’s why we sent him on first,” Waters said in the interview.
In a further step, the other CEOs came to their hearing armed with new initiatives designed to appeal to Waters and her fellow Democrats.
JPMorgan announced on March 5 that it would stop financing private prisons after years of outcry and protest from immigration activists.
On March 18, Goldman Sachs said it would boost diversity goals companywide: entry-level hire classes in the Americas will have goals of 50 percent women, 11 percent black and 14 percent Hispanic, according to a company memo. The firm also introduced a version of the National Football League’s Rooney rule for experienced hires, mandating the interview of two diverse candidates for every opening.
‘Morning Joe’
A day before the April 10 hearing, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan unveiled plans to raise his company’s minimum wage to an industry-leading $20 an hour.
The effect of the Democrats’ strategy is still limited. Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. didn’t announce policy changes ahead of the hearing, although Citi won plaudits from Democrats for a move last year to restrict gun sales by business customers. Many practices that raised the ire of the left, such as lending to Saudi Arabia and redlining, are still going on. And criticism of the wages at JPMorgan was sternly rebuffed by Dimon.
Still, Democrats were pleased by the progress and promised to seek more.
“I think we’ve made great strides, probably more than people expected,” Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who leads the panel’s diversity subcommittee, said in an interview. “That was just the warm-up act.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.