Having now left banking, I truly feel for you all. I've had some of the hours you guys are now experiencing far before WFH and it is truly miserable. I myself suffered from physical and mental health issues from workload.
If just ONE middle market or boutique bank can pull this off I guarantee that real change will happen across the industry.
Get your analyst class to start unionizing.
Want to actually see your MDs give a shit and be concerned about your workload?
Want to have an actual vacation?
Want to not work seven days a week for a year straight?
Want that "protected weekend" actually protected?
Want more than one hour a day to take care of personal issues and errands?
Want change that will actually last and not just some shitty townhall telling you take a break?
Want to be treated like a human instead of getting a Peloton and another last minute pitch?
Unionize.
Band together with your analyst class, because you have more power than you think. As as collective analyst class they can't fire you all, it would be an absolute nightmare for the bank if they did, not to mention the legal ramifications and negative press. Hell even if you only get half of your class, the effort and time to even replace half a class would be hell, MDs might even have to open an excel file! (Microsoft Office Suite has an app for iPhone right???)
Thanks to the bold 13 at GS, the media is already on your side, even those who dislike bankers feel for the 21 year old kids being worked to death.
Even the start of the process to unionize will have DJ D-SOL himself shaking is his little Gucci loafs.
At this point this is a workplace safety issue. How many analyst have died from being overworked in the past five years? Moelis, GS, Lincoln, BofA, City, and I'm sure I'm missing several others. This is just deaths directly from the job. Not even including the physical and mental health issues countless juniors have suffered and are still suffering.
There's no better time than now. You even have the benefit to use WSO (an anonymous forum) where you can at least start floating this to others at your bank.
While I'm no longer in the industry, it would be incredible to see real changes happen and stay for good.
Do it for your fellow lost bankers who actually worked themselves to death.
Do it for yourself.
Do it for your friends and family who wish they could do a dinner or brunch with you (with out you bringing your laptop or having to cancel last minute).
Do it for your girlfriend/boyfriend.
Do it for your physical and mental health.
Do it for the prospects who will benefit from your bravery and courage to push the change forward.
Start talking to your fellow analyst and reach out to a union organizer.
Be the change you want to see.
It's a brilliant idea. Unions make it hard to receive performance based bonuses, however.
But it really is a brilliant idea. Any one who doesn't support unions is either deluded, a billionaire, a sycophant or a psychopath.
Even if some unions are rubbish, the net sum of their impact has been positive for the average person.
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Negative for who? And why are you comparing public sector unions, who aren't bargaining with fiduciaries, with private sector unions?
Why do you think it is in the interest of workers to not unionize? Skilled labor that has unionized does extremely well and they have successfully extracted substantial parts of the excess economic profits from the business owners. That’s why union electricians and welders and the like can earn >$150k in lower COL areas and never work close to the amounts of a banker and have better benefits.
There is a reason why jr banker compensation is DOWN, not up, since the 80s. Look up posts here from pre-GFC. Associates were paid more in absolute dollars than they are now in spite of all of these firms having record revenue.
Sure, unions don’t help the companies, but who cares? The purpose of unionizing is to extract a great proportion of the $$ available. What other leverage do you think jr bankers have? The greatest analyst at GS isn’t paid less than every associate based on performance or value add, so wtf are you even talking about?
In both cases, the employees are being paid below their value added (hence why they're employed in the first place-their benefit exceeds their cost), but the company's profit off of the union guy is less than that for the non-union guy. So when you say is the union plumber adding double the value of the non-union plumber, the obvious answer is no, but you're asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is how much of the value added by the plumber should the company keep. Most people would agree that companies keep too much of the value added by the employee, which explain s the resurgence in the popularity of unions.
Maybe take some basic Econ classes on unions and their impact on the marginal worker before comments like this.
U serious bro? In Introduction to Microeconomics at Princeton, first semester, our prof showed us a list of "controversial" political topics that were universally (90%+) agreed upon by economists to be positive or negative. Unions were a positive on there. I still remember that.
Realistically speaking, at an MM or smaller boutique this may be possible but for big BB's and even EB's, it would probably backtrack them maybe a week or so before they re-hire people. I'm sure that there is an endless supply of people willing to eat shit for 2 years just to have a seat in banking.
Doesn't work like that just like communism didn't. If you don't like the hours / lifestyle - leave the industry. Eventually, less and less smart people will want to stay, they will realise they need to either increase pay or reduce the hours.
Free market works beautifully. We are paid / work just how much we deserve, no one is forcing us to stay in.
It is a silly idea, but unions aren’t communism and this is literally the free market. Collective bargaining is a strategy to maximize value. Failing to understand that is some of the smoothest brain non target shit ever.
Smooth brain yes
Wtf does non target have to do with this?
Can’t believe people are taking this post seriously hahaha
You lost me at “City” Bank
Look at this prospect here, he's so cool, he knows how to spell a bank name. Stfu