Wells Fargo’s financial relationship with gunmakers and the National Rifle Association has cost the bank its mortgage business with a major U.S. union.

The American Federation of Teachers notified the San Francisco-based financial giant Thursday  that it is dropping the bank as a recommended mortgage lender for the national education union’s 1.7 million members.

The American Federation of Teachers said Thursday that it is cutting its financial ties with Wells Fargo as a result of the banking giant’s relationships with the National Rifle Association and gunmakers.

The decision came after Wells Fargo dismissed the union’s request to cut lending ties with or impose new restrictions on firearms business partners following the mass shooting Feb. 14 that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

AFT President Randi Weingarten told USA TODAY in an interview Thursday that Wells Fargo sent signals loud and clear through “radio silence.”

And in a letter obtained by USA TODAY, Weingarten told Sloan on Thursday: “We can only assume that, in light of your silence and the NRA attacks, you have decided that the NRA business is more valuable to you than students and their educators are.”

The AFT’s dropping of Wells Fargo represents a financial blow to the nation’s third-largest bank by assets. Wells Fargo’s mortgage program had been featured in the Union Privilege program on the AFT website, and roughly 1,600 member families received mortgages from the bank in 2017. In all, more than 20,000 AFT members hold Wells Fargo mortgages.

The national teachers union has praised other companies including Bank of America, BlackRock and Vanguard for the steps they’ve taken in engaging in conversations and amending their affiliation with gun companies, which the AFT says Wells Fargo will not.

The NRA, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, has bashed companies that severed ties to the interest group in recent weeks.

“Some corporations have decided to punish NRA membership in a shameful display of political and civic cowardice,” the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action said in a statement in February.

The group said “the law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school’s security preparedness, the failure of America’s mental health system, the failure of the National Instant Check System or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement.”