Ver.di to T-Mobile USA Workers: 'We've Got Your Back'

The Deutsche Telekom shareholders meeting was a marathon, but the T-Mobile USA workers and CWAers who attended the meeting are still pumped by the support they got from members of ver.di, the union representing German workers at T-Mobile. CWA District 13 Vice President Ed Mooney headed the U.S. group; see tweets, postings, photos and videos at www.loweringthebarforus.org.

Even before the meeting, ver.di was standing up for the rights of T-Mobile USA workers to have a union, without the company intimidation and interference they now face. Lothar Schröder, a leader and executive board member of ver.di, told a huge May Day crowd that Deutsche Telekom uses "vicious methods" to keep out CWA.  

"Ver.di and CWA have created a global union that will fight for the rights of T-Mobile workers. Together we will go to the annual meeting of Deutsche Telekom to turn on some heat!" Schröder said.

More than 50 ver.di members distributed leaflets outside every entrance to the meeting that described T-Mobile USA's "wild west" tactics.

At the meeting, Kornelia Dubbel, a ver.di member and member of the T-Mobile supervisory board, said that in the U.S., DT is known as an employer who spreads fear among its workers. "There is fear of arbitrary dismissal for being 'caught' by management for simply taking and reading a leaflet from the union. Why do you act this way?"

As to T-Mobile USA management's claim that the CWA campaign is 'all lies,' "I have been to the United States with some of my colleagues from ver.di and I could not talk to T-Mobile workers. I have seen this treatment first hand," she said.

Also at the meeting, Greg Kinczewski, vice president of the Marco Consulting Group, stressed that companies should not exploit the inadequacies of American labor law. "Decency requires more than compliance with the law!" And Markus Dufner, Association of Critical Shareholders, questioned why DT allows a double standard of respect for rights in Germany and a constant campaign of union avoidance in the United States.

The German media continues to report about the double standard that DT allows in the United States. And members of Congress also have stepped in, signing a letter to DT CEO René Obermann urging him to protect and respect workers' rights in the United States (see next story.)