Global Union Leaders March with Atento Workers in Mexico City

UNI Conference Passes Resolution Supporting T-Mobile U.S. Workers

Demanding justice at Atento Mexico, CWA President Larry Cohen and more than 150 other global labor leaders marched Friday through the streets of Mexico City with 1,500 call center workers fighting for fair union elections.

Under pressure, Atento and labor authorities this week announced that an election will be held Monday, Oct. 31, giving the company's 20,000 workers a new opportunity to elect the independent telecom union STRM as their representative. The rapid timeline presents a major challenge, and UNI Global Union is asking workers around the world to show their support. Click here to add a message of solidarity on Facebook.

"The union only has three days to find eligible voters among workers in eight locations and must do so without any access rights or list of eligible voters," said Marcus Courtney, a former CWA organizer who heads UNI ICTS, the telecom and IT sector. "Managers have already restarted their anti-union campaign to keep workers from voting to join the Sindicato de Telefonistas de la República Mexicana (STRM)."

CWA President Larry Cohen and 150 other global labor leaders meeting in Mexico last week march with 1,500 telecom workers fighting for fair union elections.

Friday's march took place during the global UNI telecom and IT conference, attended by 158 union leaders from 38 countries. Cohen said many Atento workers wore masks to protect their identity during the demonstration, fearing retribution from Atento. The company is owned by the Spanish telecom giant, Telefonica.

"Telefonica is even larger in market value than Verizon — $150 billion vs $100 billion — and demonstrates again that there is no limit to greed," Cohen said. "Customer service work is sourced to Atento where turnover rates are near 90 percent, pay and benefits are far below benchmark and firings in the hundreds occur daily among nearly 10,000 workers at eight locations in and around Mexico City."

Atento workers have been subject to a company union that protects management's interests. When they tried to elect STRM in July 2010, managers threatened union supporters and produced a fraudulent voting list. The Mexican Labor Court voided the election but until this week had failed to schedule a new vote.

Cohen said Atento workers are in the same situation as T-Mobile workers in the United States: Both companies are owned by European corporations that are forced by law, in Spain and Germany, respectively, to meet high standards for workers' rights. But weak labor laws in Mexico and the United States allow them to exploit employees.

"In Spain, bargaining rights are near universal and this type of management behavior could never occur," Cohen said. "Global solidarity in all nations with Telefonica/Atento workers is the only way that workers in Mexico or El Salvador or Colombia will ever have an improvement in living standards or rights."

He said Friday's rally "demonstrated that unions in Brazil, the UK and Argentina are willing to stand with workers in Mexico and elsewhere and fight back. During the conference, we saw the same solidarity with telecom unions around the world standing with us as we step up organizing at T-Mobile."

At the UNI conference, leaders from the nearly 60 unions represented endorsed a solidarity motion demanding that T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom end its double standard of respecting union rights at home but not abroad.

"We expect Deutsche Telekom to live up to its claims of social responsibility in real life," said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings. "It respects workers' rights in Germany but is creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity in the United States and in other countries to keep unions out of those workplaces."

Cohen said the unions' resolve illustrates that with global solidarity in a global economy, "we have a chance to greet the multinationals with a united voice wherever they invest."