CWA, Ver.di Form TU to Support T-Mobile Workers

For copies of the Logan report and other information, contact Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, 202-434-1168, cjohnson@cwa-union.org

Washington, D.C. – The Communications Workers of America and Ver.di, the union representing workers at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile operations in Germany, have formed TU to support workers in both countries. 

Workers from Germany joined their U.S. counterparts in an academic forum on labor practices in the U.S. and in meetings with government officials that spotlighted the double standard in T-Mobile's treatment of workers in Germany, where the company respects the right of workers to form a union, and the United States, where workers who want a union and bargaining rights face intimidation and worse.

CWA President Larry Cohen said the goal of TU was to overcome this double standard. "We're saying to multinational companies, in this case, Deutsche Telekom, that we're tired of the face of cooperation in Germany and the club of intolerance in the United States," he said. In TU, CWA works with U.S. members and telecom workers and Ver.di, which represents workers at T-Mobile and DT, is responsible for overall relations with the company.

At a news conference announcing the partnership, Cohen was joined by Ado Wilhelm, a Ver.di official; Professor Adrienne Eaton of Rutgers University, and "X," a U.S. T-Mobile employee who was disguised so as not to face recriminations by T-Mobile.

At the academic forum, new research by John Logan of San Francisco State University documented T-Mobile's record of harassment and intimidation of workers who want a union. Since T-Mobile entered the US market in 2001, it has created an atmosphere of fear and repression for workers. The forum was sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, and CWA, and included academics from Rutgers and American University.