Two major Wall Street banks are reportedly planning to crack down on the number of hours junior bankers can work per week, following outrage over the tragic death of a 35-year-old Bank of America employee who had logged a 100-hour work week.
Bank of America, which has come under scrutiny after former Green Beret Leo Lukenas III died suddenly from a heart attack in May, is rolling out new timekeeping tools to make junior bankers accountable for how they spend their time. The Wall Street Journal It was reported on Thursday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan will limit junior bankers' work hours to 80 hours a week, the first such limit enacted by one of the nation's largest financial institutions, although exceptions will be made for certain cases, such as during trading.
This movement, The Journal published an extensive exposé It details how managers at Bank of America instructed their direct reports to lie about working long hours, even though they were exceeding the 80-hour limit that was introduced more than a decade ago after a trainee's death due to overwork.
Bank of America's new time-management tool was being developed before Lukenas' death on May 2, the bank said, and is expected to go live next week, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The software requires junior investment bankers in the U.S. to log their hours on a daily basis instead of weekly.
According to The Wall Street Journal, junior bankers will be required to state which deals they are working on, when they are working on them, and the names of managers who oversee their work.
Junior bankers will be able to rate their ability to take on more work on a scale of one to four, according to the paper.
The Post has reached out to Bank of America for comment.
Junior bankers at JPMorgan have been self-reporting their hours via timesheets for years, are guaranteed a weekend off every three months, and aren't required to work between 6 p.m. on Friday and noon on Saturday.
Bank executives have been informing staff of the new guidelines in recent weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new weekly caps are the same as New York state's work-hour limits for medical interns.
JPMorgan declined to comment when contacted by The Washington Post.
In May, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the nation's largest financial institution was asking “what lessons can we learn” from Lucenas' death.
The married father of two young children died of what the coroner diagnosed as acute coronary thrombosis, just days after working on a team that completed a $2 billion merger.
As previously reported by The Washington Post, shortly before his death, Lucenas had been looking for a new job due to the grueling work conditions, which involved working at least 16 hours a day.
There is no direct evidence that his work was related to his death, Numerous studies A link between acute stress and thrombosis has been pointed out.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate, and our focus remains on doing all we can to support the family and team, especially those who worked closely with him,” a Boston Football Club spokesperson told The Post at the time.
The bank instituted the rule limiting working hours to 80 hours in 2013 after 21-year-old intern Moritz Erhardt at its London branch died after working until 6am three nights in a row.
But a Wall Street Journal investigation found that junior employees routinely violated the pay limits and were instructed to lie to their superiors about excessive workloads.
Several employees complained to The Wall Street Journal about grueling work schedules that led to ill health and hospitalization for a variety of stress-related conditions.
A Bank of America spokesman told The Wall Street Journal: “Our practices are clear and we expect all employees, including managers, to follow them. We take disciplinary action when violations are identified.”
Two weeks after Mr. Lukenas' death, another Bank of America trader in London, 25-year-old Adnan Dumik, collapsed and died suddenly during a charity soccer match.
The cause of death is believed to be cardiac arrest.
