Labor & Employment Law

Report: T-Mobile Mistreats U.S. Employees

By James Parks

T-Mobile USA and its parent company, German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom (DT), have waged a systematic campaign to prevent employees from forming a union, according to a new report.

“Lowering the Bar or Setting the Standard? Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. Labor Practices,” released today by the American Rights at Work Education Fund, shows that although DT respects workers’ rights and cooperates closely with unions in Germany, it routinely mistreats workers in the United States and tries to thwart their freedom to form unions.

Says Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of American Rights at Work:

Respecting workers’ rights and needs benefits employees, their families, and a company’s bottom line. T-Mobile’s parent company became a leader in the telecom industry in Europe by working with their employees and proving that there is a better way to do business. It is inexcusable that our dysfunctional labor law system allowed T-Mobile USA to disregard its employees’ rights here in the United States.

T-Mobile USA routinely uses illegal or unethical practices to thwart workers’ efforts to form a union, including mandatory anti-union meetings and one-on-one meetings between workers and supervisors, according to the report. Click here to read the full report, which was written by John Logan, director of labor studies at San Francisco State University.

Based on DT’s strong record of supporting workers’ rights in Europe, the American union movement helped open the door for the company to enter the U.S. wireless market in 2001. Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen says:

Since then, we have seen no respect for workers’ rights, just eight years of intolerance and hostility toward workers and complete disregard of their rights to organize and bargain collectively. It’s now time to hold DT and T-Mobile USA accountable.

The disparities between DT employees in Europe and the United States led to an unprecedented partnership between CWA and ver.di, the German telecommunications workers union. The two recently joined forces to create a new union known as TU to collectively advance fair treatment and collective bargaining for all DT workers.

Cohen told a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month that unions must develop unique partnerships like this one to operate in a global economy dominated by multinational companies. TU will give T-Mobile USA employees, who do not have a union, greater strength to fight the company’s anti-worker practices, he said.

T-Mobile employees in the United States work in an atmosphere of fear and are afraid to be seen supporting a union. In fact, a T-Mobile USA worker appeared at the November press conference in a disguise and only spoke by whispering to Cohen and others who relayed answers to questions. Worker X, as he was called, said the company monitors the actions of union supporters and often fires them. Worker X was afraid they would recognize his voice if he spoke aloud on the microphones.

“We believe that through this new union, we will contribute to better working conditions for workers in both countries,” says Lothar Schröder, member of the Federal Executive of ver.di.

Management must get used to the idea that we are representing the interests not only of German workers but of American workers as well. This is the right response to globalization.

CWA and ver.di are working with the international skills federation UNI Global Union to win a commitment from DT that it will guarantee basic worker and union rights to all of its employees everywhere in the world. “This agreement would end the double standard now in place when it comes to workers’ rights,” said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on December 09, 2009 (boomark / email).