WASHINGTON—A group of Democratic senators on Thursday asked the Labor Department to open an investigation into labor practices affecting Wells Fargo & Co.'s bank tellers and other retail employees, escalating pressure on the bank embroiled in a scandal over its sales practices.

The request came in a letter sent Thursday to top Labor Department officials from eight lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who has emerged as Congress's leading critic of Wells Fargo. At a Senate panel hearing on Tuesday, Ms. Warren urged Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf to resign and return pay to take responsibility for the problem. At the hearing, Mr. Stumpf apologized for behavior that led employees to create as many as two million unwanted or fictitious customer accounts in an effort to meet sales goals. The bank fired 5,300 employees over the sales practices, largely lower-level workers.

Specifically, the senators asked the department's Wage and Hour Division to make an inquiry into whether Wells Fargo "aggressively skirted" overtime laws and failed to properly compensate bank tellers and associates who worked long hours to meet their sales quotas, or salaried bank associates misclassified as overtime-exempt officers.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the bank prides itself on "creating a positive environment for our team members, including market competitive compensation, career-development opportunities, a broad array of benefits, and a strong offering of work-life programs."

A Labor Department spokesman confirmed the receipt of the letter and said that the department officials "take the concerns raised in the letter very seriously." He added that he couldn't discuss details of potential law enforcement decision-making.

The senators said their request is based on regulators' findings of "a workplace characterized by stringent sales quotas and aggressive incentives imposed on its employees, and staggering neglect by management of the obvious consequences to consumers of those quotas and incentives."

Wells Fargo has been under increasing heat from regulators and lawmakers since it settled allegations of misconduct and agreed to pay a combined fine of $185 million earlier this month. Federal prosecutors have initiated a criminal investigation into the case.

Following Tuesday's Senate panel, a House committee is scheduled to question Mr. Stumpf at its own hearing Sept. 29.

Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2016 17:15 ET (21:15 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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