ver.di Leader: AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile Like Night and Day

TU and CWA activists in Albuquerque are joined by ver.di leader Lothar Schröder, left.

Below: Demonstration outside the Albuquerque call center calls on T-Mobile USA management to bring back good jobs.

This past month, Lothar Schröder, Executive Board Member of ver.di, the German union representing over 2 million workers, including those at T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom, has been traveling to T-Mobile locations throughout the United States, meeting with T-Mobile USA workers and the CWA activists who are helping them get a union voice.

He also observed the stark differences between the two companies: AT&T Mobility remains neutral in organizing campaigns and T-Mobile USA uses fear and intimidation to stop workers from having a union.

Schröder held numerous offsite meetings with T-Mobile employees in Nashville, Wichita, and Albuquerque. In all three locations, he heard workers talk of management intimidation around job metrics, on-the-job surveillance and imposed scheduling, as well as harassing calls made by managers to workers' homes about family and medical leave. (One worker had MS, another, a premature baby.) Outside the call centers, workers were convinced that they were under surveillance and many were reluctant to talk long.

Schröder then traveled to an AT&T Mobility Retail Store in Metairie, La., where the workers are represented by CWA and he had no problem meeting with a dozen employees in the break room to talk about the benefits of collective bargaining. That was a stark contrast to T-Mobile USA management, which refused to let Schröder in to any T-Mobile facility, despite his standing as the second ranking official in T-Mobile USA's parent company. A T-Mobile "spokesperson" called Schröder a "third party."