SIF: T-Mobile: New Strategy to Win Bargaining Rights

Through the T-Mobile SIF, CWA and ver.di, the union representing Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile workers in Germany, are working together to win bargaining rights for T-Mobile USA workers.

T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, is the fourth largest wireless company in the U.S., and has viciously fought workers in the U.S. who want a union. In Germany, however, workers at T-Mobile and DT have bargaining rights, and in fact, DT boasts of its respect for workers’ rights. That’s been a big focus of the T-Mobile SIF campaign, with ver.di taking the lead in pointing out DT’s double standard in the U.S.

Last November, five ver.di members joined T-Mobile USA workers and CWAers at meetings and a news conference in Washington, D.C., that announced the formation of TU, a global union representing workers in both countries.

Since then, ver.di and CWA have turned up the heat on DT. Check out the full campaign at www.loweringthebarforus.org.

The campaign also focuses on alerting investors to DT’s double standard and won the support of nearly every Democratic member of the House Education and Labor Committee, plus seven Republican members of Congress, who signed letters to DT CEO Rene Obermann calling on the company to respect workers’ rights in the United States. T-Mobile has used many tactics to try to stop workers from organizing, even hiring private security guards to interfere with organizing drives, the letters noted. “These reports paint a troubling picture of a company that appears far out of sync with Deutsche Telekom’s stated commitment to respect workers’ rights.”