Human Rights Watch Hits Deutsche Telekom, Other Firms for Hypocrisy

Human Rights Watch has called out Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile and several other European companies for violating workers' rights in the U.S., while maintaining positive labor relations with unions and workers in their home countries.

The 130-page report, "A Strange Case: Violations of Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States by European Multinational Corporations," details ways in which some European multinational firms have carried out aggressive campaigns to keep workers in the United States from organizing and bargaining, often violating U.S. labor law.

T-Mobile, for example, has characterized employees' "talking about rights" as dangerous activity to be reported immediately to management. Read the full report at http://www.hrw.org/node/92719.

CWA and ver.di, the union representing German workers at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile, have formed TU to represent workers on both sides of the Atlantic and to support T-Mobile USA workers who want a union voice.

Among the violations documented in the report are practices of forcing workers into "captive audience" meetings to hear anti-union harangues while prohibiting pro-union voices, threatening dire consequences if workers form unions, threatening to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike, spying on employee organizers, and even firing workers who support organizing efforts at companies.

The Human Rights Watch report is based on thirty interviews with workers and employees' testimony in legal proceedings, findings and decisions of US labor law authorities, company documents, and written exchanges with company management.

The report noted that U.S. labor law system is characterized by long delays, weak penalties, and one-sided employer access to staff inside the workplace and called for more stringent  overview by European headquarters of U.S. managers' practices.