T-Mobile Worker Activists Talk Strategy for 2016

Fifteen T-Mobile activist workers, members of TU, met in Washington, DC, this week to talk about organizing at the company and to set goals for 2016.

TU is the joint union formed by CWA and ver.di, the largest union in Germany, to strengthen the voice of T-Mobile workers on both sides of the Atlantic.

T-Mobile US workers have been fighting for a union voice for nearly as long as the corporation, owned by Deutsche Telekom of Germany, has been operating in the U.S. T-Mobile US has responded with a campaign of harassment, intimidation and outright termination of workers. The company has been cited for numerous violations of federal labor law by the National Labor Relations Board.

T-Mobile workers In Germany have mobilized to support workers' rights for their U.S. counterparts. They've demonstrated outside the company's annual meeting, created city-to-city worker partnerships, signed petitions calling for government action and organized actions to push DT to end the double standard that enables T-Mobile US to abuse workers' rights. "We have your back," ver.di members have pledged.

Ado Wilhelm, who retired as ver.di head of mobile communications, and Kornelia Dubbel, a ver.di member and member of the T-Mobile supervisory board, joined the TU activists in Washington this week. CWA President Chris Shelton praised Wilhelm and Dubbel for their commitment to the fight. Wilhelm, Dubbel and other ver.di leaders and activists have traveled to T-Mobile job sites across the U.S. to focus attention on T-Mobile US's abuse of workers' rights.

Ver.di's Ado Wilhelm and Kornelia Dubbel, center, joined T-Mobile US worker activists meeting this week at CWA Headquarters.