The $1.9 trillion-asset company notified U.S. workers this week that they are eligible for the special cash award if they earned a salary of less than $75,000 last year, and their total cash compensation was less than $85,000. In addition, employees must meet certain criteria related to job performance and conduct.

Some international employees are also eligible, though workers based in India and the Philippines will qualify only if their salary is $25,000 or less.

"Our employees have worked hard over the last year to serve our customers in branches, over the phone, and in operations centers — or supported the employees who do — making a real difference for our company and customers," Wells Fargo

spokesperson Laurie Kight said in a written statement. "We are pleased to offer this incentive payment to certain U.S. and international employees to recognize their efforts."

Joe Hertz, who works for Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, was one of the employees who received an email about the one-time bonuses. He said that he and his colleagues were surprised by the bank's message. After reading the eligibility criteria, he expects to receive a $1,000 bonus.

In Hertz's roughly 22 years at the San Francisco-based bank, the only other time that Wells made a similar award to employees was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that was under different circumstances, he said.

Hertz is involved in the efforts to unionize Wells Fargo's workforce, and he attributes the bank's decision to offer the one-time bonuses to the organizing campaign.

"I read it as a direct response to our union efforts," Hertz, who is an associate analyst at the bank, said in an interview. "I think not only can we take credit. I think we deserve to take credit."

Hertz elaborated in a Facebook post, saying that he believes the payment is a sign that Wells is feeling pressure from the labor organizing campaign.

"They are trying to buy our loyalty with a one-time bonus. They are hoping that we will forget about our grievances and give up on our union. They are wrong," Hertz wrote.

In recent months, workers at two Wells Fargo branches — in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Daytona Beach, Florida — have voted to unionize. Last week, employees at a branch of the bank in Atwater, California voted against unionization.

Nick Weiner is senior campaign lead at the Committee for Better Banks, which is heading the unionization push at Wells Fargo. He said that the bank reached out before the bonuses were announced to make sure that union officials were OK with workers at the two unionized branches receiving the payments. The union officials gave their blessing, he added.

Weiner also said that Wells Fargo informed the union officials that the bank was not going to threaten to withhold the bonuses from employees who vote for a union.

"So that's actually a positive development that we appreciated," Weiner said. "They didn't try to play games with it, which would have been kind of unlawful, to try to discriminate against the union branches."

Wells Fargo did not say how many employees will receive the bonuses. As of Dec. 31, 2022, the company had roughly 238,000 employees, 81% of whom were based in the United States, according to a securities filing. Back in 2021, Wells raised its minimum wage for hourly employees from $18 to $22.

The bank announced the one-time bonuses during the same week that it disclosed that CEO Charlie Scharf received an 18% pay raise last year.

Members of the bank's board voted to approve total compensation of $29 million for Scharf, up from $24.5 million in 2022. 

Wells Fargo said that Scharf would have been paid $30.3 million, but board members exercised "negative discretion" after Scharf asked them to do so. Scharf, who has been the bank's CEO since 2019, inherited a slew of regulatory problems that stemmed from a series of scandals.

"Despite the improved performance of the company and the significant progress made, Mr. Scharf continues to believe negative discretion is appropriate to emphasize that more work remains ahead," Wells Fargo said in its filing.