Income Inequality, Advocating for Change, and an Interview with Tyrel Oates

Have you ever felt that you were being treated unfairly by your supervisor or maybe one
your professors? Have you thought about telling the person who held a superior position over
you exactly how you felt? For many of us the answer is Yes. You play the scenario out in
your head during your commute or while sitting in class, and for some reason you never follow
through with it. Maybe it is because you do not want to seem unprofessional, or because you are
scared of getting reprimanded, or even fired. For whatever reason, you never speak up for
yourself.
Meet Mr. Tyrel Oates. He is a Wells Fargo branch employee in Portland, Oregon, who
decided to speak out about a problem plaguing America, but few know little about: income
inequality. He not only spoke up for himself, he sent an email to the President of Wells Fargo,
John Stumpf, and cced 200,000 other Wells Fargo employees. Since he sent that email the story
has gone national, being reported in the Business Insider, The Huffington Post, and the San
Francisco Business Times, just to mention a few.
I reached out to Mr. Oates, and expressed to him how I admired his tenaciousness in
sending an that email to the president of one of the most profitable corporations in the United
States about an issue Wells Fargo helps create. Surprisingly, he responded to my message, and
agreed to let me interview him for the Charlotte School of Law Civil Rights Blog. The following
is a transcript of our conversationHere is what happened:
Carla Vestal (CV): Had you thought about writing that email for a while, or was it more of a
spontaneous event?
Tyrel Oates (TO):; Finding a way to create positive change in the workplace, has been
something I have thought about for a long time.
CV: What was going through your mind when you were ccing the Wells Fargo Global Aaddress
book to your email?
TO: When the decision was made to address the issue, it was clear that the only way there was a
chance in creating change, was to make everyone aware of the scope of the issue, and to let
everyone know that they are not alone in their thoughts.
CV: Are you this assertive in everything you do?
TO: Having a passion for something and remaining idle accomplishes nothing, [so] when you
feel
strong enough about an idea, you just have to go for it.
CV: Have you always been so forward thinking about income inequality or is your focus on this
issueit something that
has developed through-out your years of service to a corporation?
1

TO: Ive been monitoring the topic of income inequality off and on since the recession hit.
CV: Other than the raise you asked for, what other intentions did you hope that the email would
have both internally and nationally?
TO: Internally, the secondary intention was to let my fellow team members know that their voice
matters and [they] should not fear retaliation for constructively voicing their opinions. Now
that
this has gone national, my biggest hope is that a larger awareness has been created
regarding the importance of this topic.
CV: Did you think that this email would garnish as much national attention as it has?
TO: I didnt even think that it would []even leave the company.
CV: What do you want people to internalize the most from this experience?
TO: That this is a much larger issue than our nation realizes,; and the solution should not be
primarily tasked to our government to address, but [should]primarily be the responsibility of
the
major corporations controlling the majority of income distribution.
CV: Would you consider yourself a political activist? If so, what inspires you to be vocal about
income inequality in particular?
TO: I would not consider myself to be a political activist; however, if this issue is not brought
into a more prevalent light, our economy will only get worse.
CV: In an era where there is very little job security for people who choose to speak-out against
the
corporation thatn employs them, what was your breaking point?
TO: There was no particular breaking point, it was more a matter of choosing the right time.
CV: Did you send the email because you were just fed up or was it based on altruism?
TO: This was definitely an action based in altruism.
CV: Do you feel that the corporation scheme devalues and dehumanizes the people who make
the profit margin for them?
TO: Absolutely.
CV: What are your next steps? Do you intend to stay employed at Wells Fargo?
TO: For now, I plan to stay with the company.
CV: What do you feel would happen if there was a movement to unionize?
2

TO: With Wells Fargo, any attempt to unionize would be shot down.
CV: Do you feel the reaction would be the same from the company Wells Fargo as the reactions
that WalMart workers have faced?
TO: The health care premiums at Wells have slowly increased over time already; on the other
hand, the company continues to grow and I do not see them needing to scale back hours to
make up for the increase in compensation.
CV: Do you think that our generation is involved enough in the workforce movement for equal
pay?
TO: Not nearly enough.
CV: What does it take to get people involved in these issues ? (other than emailing the
Presidentprez orand
ccing the world because that is something that comes from within, Mr.!)?
TO: Choosing not to remain ignorant to the issues we as a nation face, and to overcome the
notion that one person has no impact, like I said in the email: While the voice of one person
in a world as large as ours may seem only like a whisper, the combined voices of each and
all of us can move mountains!

Mr. Oates does not consider himself a political activist, just a concerned worker taking a
stand; however, the topic of income inequality is without a doubt one of the most politically
charged debates that is happening in our country. Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient, which is a statistical dispersion model of how income is distributed in a nation.
Although a full discussion of income inequality is outside of the scope of this article, here are
just a few startling facts and statistics about income inequality and the United States:
1. United States income inequality is the highest it has been since 1928.1
2. The income disparity between Caucasian and African Americans, commonly referred to
as the Black/White Gap, has persisted by growing from $19,000 in 1967 to $27,000 in
2011.2

1 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/07/5-facts-about-economicinequality/
2 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/08/22/kings-dream-remains-an-elusive-goalmany-americans-see-racial-disparities/4/#chapter-3-demographic-economic-databy-race
3

3. Wealth inequality is even greater than income inequality with the highest earning fifth of
Americans earning 59.1% of the income, and the richest fifth of Americans holding
88.9% of the nations wealth.3
4. In 1965, a CEO made twenty-four24 times what the average production worker made. In
2009, a CEO made 184 times more that the average production worker.4
5. The United States ranks the highest in child poverty at 21%. This is higher than any other
developed nation.5 6
What does all of thisese mean? It means that we live in a society where the rich are
getter richer, and the poor are getting poorer. But it does not have to remain this way. To
stop, and possibly reverse this disturbing trend, it takes ordinary people, like Tyrel Oates,
and people like you and me, to find our voice in our respective community, and to organize
and to speak out against these injustices.
In a time when people will camp outside an electronics store for the latest technology, but
refuse to make it to the ballot box to cast their vote, this seems like a daunting task. What is
the use of having the latest phone or computer if we, as a society, arent using them as tools
to advocate for social -change? We become puppets for the Corporatocracy and remain blind
to what is happening all around us, because we have to update our Facebook or Twitter
status. Imagine the impact on this countrys current political and social paradigms if we all
made a conscious effort to speak -up and speak -out. The most powerful tool we have for
change is one that was framed by the Ffounding Ffathers of America: the power to vote.
With North Carolina facing one of the most nationally watched senatorial campaigns in
the nation this year, I challenge everyone reading this to make it a point to vote on November
4, 2014. If you arent registered to vote in this state, then find a cause in your home state,
write a letter to an elected official, or sign a petition for something in which you feel
passionately.
In the words of Tyrel Oates, a man who challenged a global economic powerhouse, I will
leave you with this:
~ While the voice of one person in a world as large as ours may seem only like a whisper,
the combined voices of each and all of us can move mountains! ~

3 http://www.nber.org/digest/apr13/w18559.html
4 http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/fact2.php
5 http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/fact9.php
6 For twenty telling charts about income inequality: see The Stanford Center on
Poverty and Inequality at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
4