A shareholder activist group is taking aim at the revolving door between banks and the U.S. government.

The union group AFL-CIO sent letters Wednesday to seven banks, including Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., asking for more information on how they pay executives departing for government jobs.

Shareholder groups have long disparaged "golden parachutes," or payouts for executives when they leave a company. But the AFL-CIO's focus on payouts for executives who leave for the public sector is a new wrinkle.

In two-page letters to the banks, the AFL-CIO asks for disclosure of which executives could receive accelerated or continued stock awards--something that employees often have to give up when they resign from a company-- if they leave for government service.

The letter raises the questions in the context of executive compensation and what shareholders get out of the payments.

"Why is it in the interest of Goldman Sachs to incentivize such departures?" AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote in a letter to Goldman Sachs's board, echoing language used in similar letters to Bank of America Corp., Lazard Ltd., Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo & Co. and the other banks. "Surely Goldman Sachs does not expect favorable government treatment from its former executives."

The banks declined to comment.

To the banks, encouraging employees to go into public service can be a matter of civic pride and a way for employees to bring expertise and valuable perspective to the government. Since leaving Wall Street for the public sector can require a substantial pay cut, it only makes sense, some banks have privately argued, to let employees who follow that path keep their unvested stock awards.

But others, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a frequent Wall Street critic, have expressed concern that the regulatory agencies are being populated by alumni of the banks they are charged with overseeing.

In an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal this week, Sen. Warren and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), both members of the Senate Banking Committee, urged the Obama administration not to nominate "Wall Street insiders" for two empty seats on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

Sen. Warren and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois have also said recently they will oppose the Obama administration's nomination of Lazard investment banker Antonio Weiss to be the Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance. They cited the banker's involvement in a so-called tax-inversion deal, in which a U.S. company reincorporates abroad and cuts its tax bill.

If his nomination is confirmed, Mr. Weiss would follow a well-worn path from the banking world to federal government. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, for example, is a former Citigroup managing director, and Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary during major parts of the financial crisis, had previously been chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Some of the banks are more explicit than others in how they treat top employees who decamp for the government. Some, like Bank of America and Lazard, merely give board committees the discretion to pay out unvested stock awards to top employees when they leave, the AFL-CIO notes.

Citigroup allows for certain executives to keep their unvested stock, with those awards continuing to vest on schedule, if they leave to work in government, charity or education.

J.P. Morgan allows for the same benefit to operating-committee members if they leave the bank to accept a government position or run for office. Goldman Sachs allows for top executives to get their stock in a cash payment if they leave to work in the government, to avoid conflicts of interest.

It isn't clear what will result from the letters from the AFL-CIO, which owns small amounts of shares in each bank. The organization said it may try to get its requests on the ballot for the banks" spring shareholder meetings, depending on the banks" response to the letters.

Shareholder proposals rarely pass at those meetings, but the proposals can expose a company to negative publicity and are one of the few ways for smaller shareholders to get a company's attention. Occasionally, they help spur changes. Bank of America shareholders passed a resolution in 2009 proposed by another union group, the Service Employees International Union, that resulted in the bank stripping the CEO and chairman at the time, Kenneth Lewis, of his chairman title.

Victoria McGrane contributed to this article.

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