In the fall of 2011, protesters pitched tents in Zuccotti Park and chanted “We are the 99%” at the glass towers of Wall Street. They faced police batons and pepper spray outside JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters, a fortress of corporate power that seemed impenetrable.
Fourteen years later, the confrontation has moved inside those very towers. But instead of megaphones in the park, it’s whispered conversations in Signal chat groups. Instead of protesters facing pepper spray, it’s CEO Jamie Dimon facing his own employees at a February 2025 town hall, shouting “I don’t care how many people sign that fucking petition.”
The 99% got hired. Now the cardboard signs are internal petitions, and the occupation is happening from the inside.
From Protest to Petition
This year, employees across JPMorgan began organizing under the banner of the JPMC Workers Alliance, supported by the Committee for Better Banks. They’re not hedge fund traders or top executives. They’re data analysts, engineers, marketing specialists, and everyone who keeps the bank’s enormous machinery running.
It’s a remarkable development in an industry that has successfully resisted organized labor for decades. Only 0.8% of banking workers are unionized, making finance the least unionized sector in America. Private bank employees hadn’t unionized in 40+ years until California’s Beneficial State Bank broke through in 2020.
According to Nick Weiner, a CWA organizer, about a dozen JPMorgan employees initially contacted the union, representing groups from different areas of the bank across the U.S. That number has since doubled, and several hundred employees have formed chat groups on Signal to discuss organizing strategies.
For many, the effort isn’t about making headlines. It’s about finding support in an environment where raising concerns can feel isolating and risky. JPMorgan’s official stance reflects the industry’s broader resistance: “We believe each employee deserves to be treated as an individual, and that the strongest relationship we can have with them is a direct one,” a company spokesperson said when asked about unionization.
What Sparked the Push
Two flashpoints galvanized the effort: a five-day return-to-office mandate and cutbacks to the bank’s diversity and inclusion programs.
Certainly, JPMorgan wasn’t alone in demanding workers return. 2025 has seen a wave of corporate RTO mandates. Amazon ordered 350,000 employees back five days a week, followed by AT&T, Dell, and others.” Research shows companies are more likely to mandate RTO after stock prices dip, hoping office time will boost productivity and profits.
On January 10, 2025, JPMorgan ended hybrid work for 40% of its 317,000+ employees, requiring full-time office attendance. The return-to-office mandate hit hardest for employees managing long commutes, family obligations, or health conditions. To many on the ground, the top-down policy decision meant losing hard-won pandemic balance.
“I’m really against the full RTO out of empathy for a lot of colleagues whose personal lives will be upended,” said one JPMorgan employee from the Southwest. “A lot of us have arranged our lives and [made] huge life decisions around being able to be remote a couple days a week or 40% of the time.”
The impacts are deeply personal. Nicolas Welch, a tech analyst going through a divorce, told Fortune he needs flexibility “to deal with family and childcare issues” and wants “to do the job I love with flexibility to do it.” Another worker from the Southwest pointed out the absurdity: when they do go into the office, they just “sit on Zoom. My team is dispersed around the world.”
Workers posted hundreds of comments on the company’s internal message board, sharing concerns about commute costs, childcare, and work-life balance. JPMorgan quickly disabled the comment function, a practice the company has used before when criticism gets too loud.
The diversity changes struck an even deeper nerve. In March 2025, JPMorgan renamed its diversity, equity and inclusion program to “Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion”, replacing “equity” with “opportunity.” The company also began streamlining diversity programs by integrating some into different business lines like human resources, effectively dismantling centralized DEI efforts.
For employees who found belonging in affinity groups or relied on inclusive policies, the changes reversed hard-won progress on inclusion.
At a February town hall, CEO Jamie Dimon didn’t hide his contempt toward the opposition. Faced with a petition that had garnered around 950 signatures opposing the RTO mandate, he snapped: “Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that fucking petition,” according to a Reuters-reviewed recording of the meeting.
That dismissiveness poured gasoline on the fire.
Occupy’s Ghosts
The irony isn’t lost on anyone: in 2011, Occupy protesters were shouting at the banks from the outside. In 2025, JPMorgan’s own employees are finding their voice on the inside.
Occupy Wall Street’s ghost haunts a new generation of JPMorgan workers. This time, it’s Millennials and Gen Z who’ve lived through the financial crisis and pandemic.
They’ve absorbed the lesson that work, no matter how prestigious it looks from the outside, doesn’t guarantee security or respect. Now they are inside the machine, discovering that its gears grind down white-collar workers too.
The calls are coming from inside the house.
More Than Money
It’s easy for outsiders to dismiss this as “well-paid bankers wanting more.” But many staffers earn middle-class salaries, face high urban housing costs, and see steeper career ladders. Their demands aren’t luxuries. They’re basic conditions of dignity.
The reality of JPMorgan pay is more modest than the “Wall Street banker” stereotype suggests. Entry-level analysts make $45,000-$95,000 annually, while associates earn $93,000-$135,000. Even Assistant Vice Presidents, despite the grand title, typically make $122,000-$166,000. In New York City, wheremedian rent exceeds $3,000 monthly, these salaries translate middle-class living, not elite status.
And career advancement has become increasingly difficult. Multiple employees noted on career sites that “it’s very difficult to move past the low levels” and that “career mobility and internal opportunities are good for entry levels and associates” but stagnate after that. Workers describe a stacked system where promotions require navigating complex politics while competing with external hires brought in above them.
This isn’t just about fatter paychecks. JPMorgan workers are organizing for flexibility, so they can balance demanding jobs with family, health, or mental well-being. They want protections for affinity groups, so that diversity isn’t treated as expendable. They’re asking for fair accommodations, so employees with medical needs aren’t forced to choose between health and career.
The RTO mandate has created particularly harsh working conditions. Workers report insufficient desk space, with some having to “hope others are taking PTO that day to get a seat.” Many locations operate on a “first come, first serve” basis that has led to increased tension among colleagues.
The irony is stark: while JPMorgan is completing a new $3 billion, 60-story Manhattan skyscraper featuring state-of-the-art amenities like a yoga studio, food court, and Irish pub for 14,000 employees, most workers toil in crowded, noisy offices where they can’t even personalize their workstations.
Finance workers are the supposed elite of the economy. Yet they echo unionizing baristas, warehouse pickers, and nurses: our jobs aren’t secure, our voices aren’t heard, and our futures are shrinking.
Across the Industry
Union density in banking is practically zero. If the country’s biggest bank sees organizing momentum, it signals even white-collar finance isn’t immune to the labor wave.
Banking’s resistance to unions runs deep. Bank workers are heavily unionized worldwide, except in the U.S. Here, international banks cite poor American conditions to justify cuts elsewhere. The financial sector has stayed union-free for decades. Industry culture, high turnover, and aggressive management resistance have blocked organizing efforts.
The JPMorgan effort follows Wells Fargo’s breakthrough. In late 2023, workers at an Albuquerque branch voted to join CWA, the first bank unionization in four decades. The effort has since spread to nearly two dozen Wells Fargo branches.
“It’s going to be a long, long grind,” said one JPMorgan employee supporting the unionization drive. The CWA process requires extensive organizing and planning. Wells Fargo employees spent a couple of years building their campaign before their first successful vote.
It would also align JPMorgan’s rank-and-file with workers in unexpected industries: tech employees resisting “crunch culture,” nonprofit staffers organizing against burnout, newsroom workers unionizing after diversity rollbacks. The message is the same: if respect is optional, then a union becomes mandatory.
Each wave is sparked by the same thing: not just low pay, but disrespect. Managers classifying flexibility as a perk, not a right. Executives treating DEI as expendable. CEOs cursing at petitions.
Two Versions of the Future for JPMorgan
The stakes of this organizing effort extend far beyond JPMorgan’s towers. Success would transform JPMorgan and signal to finance workers everywhere that even the most union-resistant industry can be organized. Failure sends the opposite message: corporate power can crush organizing even when labor has momentum.
After unionizing, Wells Fargo workers won improved 401k plans, just-cause protections, quarterly labor-management committees, expanded training, and $1,000 ratification bonuses. More importantly, they gained a voice. As one former Wells Fargo worker who moved to unionized Beneficial State Bank put it: “At Wells Fargo, I was constantly under extreme sales pressure and knew that if I spoke up, I would be putting my job at risk. Now, not only do I have a voice on the job, but I have an actual say when it comes to pay and metrics.”
But if JPMorgan successfully crushes the organizing effort, the consequences ripple outward too. Research shows that successful union-busting campaigns create “a powerful chilling atmosphere” where workers at other locations “stop organizing after witnessing anti-union discrimination.” The message is clear: corporations want workers to believe they must choose between a union and their job.
JPMorgan must choose: attract talent through respect and shared power, or rule through top-down control. The company can keep spending record profits on union-busters and executive bonuses while workers scramble for desks, or it can prove its values extend beyond marketing copy.
If JPMorgan workers win, expect organizing drives at Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Bank of America. If they lose, banking will remain the last major holdout against the wave of worker organizing sweeping white-collar America.
Curtain Call
In 2011, Occupy told Wall Street it was the enemy. In 2025, the protest has moved upstairs into the very offices once seen as untouchable.
Look at the arc: from tents in Zuccotti Park to Signal chats and town hall confrontations. The protest never ended.
For JPMorgan staff, organizing isn’t about sticking it to the man. It’s about protecting balance, fairness, and voice in workplaces that feel increasingly brittle. With JPMorgan posting record profits of $58.5 billion in 2024, an 18% increase from the previous year, workers are questioning why they need to sacrifice flexibility and inclusive programs for a company that’s never been more successful.
Occupy shouted from the streets. Today, JPMorgan workers speak in hushed tones but with greater force and purpose. And this time, there’s no barricade separating the chants from the corner office.
Primary Sources:
- Communications Workers of America organizing reports and NLRB filings, 2024-2025
- Reuters exclusive recording of Jamie Dimon town hall, February 2025
- Fortune reporting on JPMorgan employee organizing and RTO mandate impacts, 2025
- Internal JPMorgan employee surveys and petition documents, 2025
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics union membership and banking industry data, 2024
- Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and Indeed salary data for JPMorgan Chase employees, 2024-2025
Further Reading:
- “Wells Fargo Workers Win First-Ever Union Election,” Communications Workers of America, December 2023
- “Fear at Work: How Employers Scare Workers Out of Unionizing,” Economic Policy Institute, 2022
- “Corporate Union Busting in Plain Sight,” Economic Policy Institute, 2024
- “Banking’s Union Wave: Wells Fargo Employees Lead the Way,” Employee Benefit News, January 2025
- “The Rise of Unions in Banking and Finance,” Labor Relations Law Insider, March 2024
- Coverage of JPMorgan RTO mandate and worker response: Fortune, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider
