AFL-CIO Joins CWA, Global Campaign for T-Mobile USA Workers

The AFL-CIO Executive Council announced March 2 that it is joining with CWA and other global unions in their campaign to help T-Mobile USA workers "win their basic labor rights, gain a voice on the job, and bargain for a better life."

In its statement, the council commended CWA, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Global Union Federations (GUFs) representatives for developing a "new organizing model that would focus global resources on supporting workers in their campaign for workers' rights at Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile USA."

Leading that campaign, CWA and ver.di, the union for T-Mobile workers in Germany, formed the global union, TU, in 2009 to support workers who want to organize.

The AFL-CIO praised the worldwide union effort to support T-Mobile USA workers as being "the first time the global labor movement in its entirety has come together to work in concert and to demand that a global corporation uphold standards of respect for workers and decent work principles wherever it operates." Global unions formerly announced their support for CWA's campaign at T-Mobile USA at a meeting in Washington, D.C., in January.

The council condemned the actions of multinationals who it said "do not bring best practices [respect for workers' rights, unions, and collective bargaining] from their home countries when they expand into the United States and other countries. "Instead," it stated, "they adopt the worst practices of their host countries: disrespect for workers, union-busting tactics, fear and intimidation for workers who speak up, and firings and reprisals when they seek to join a union."

"This is exactly what German multinational corporation Deutsche Telekom did when it expanded its wireless and call center operations into the United States with...its wholly owned subsidiary T-Mobile USA," said the executive council, "launching an aggressive and comprehensive 'union avoidance' strategy."