Telecom News: T-Mobile Under Pressure to Treat Workers Equally

CWA's website for T-Mobile workers, www.tuworkers.org, plays a unique role in helping the workers organize in the United States. Through the website, T-Mobile workers in the U.S. are able to network and share experiences with union-represented T-Mobile workers in Germany and Europe, and with union-represented AT&T Mobility wireless workers in the United States.

As the Deutsche Telecom-owned T-Mobile continues to build its customer-base in the United States, CWA has been working with partner unions in Europe to pressure the company's top management to respect the organizing rights of its U.S.-based employees. The German-based Deutsche Telecom and its T-Mobile subsidiary respect the rights of workers to organize in Europe, but the same tolerance has not been extended to the company's 40,000 U.S.-based workers.

Elected leaders in the House and Senate are also joining in, working behind the scenes to urge Deutsche Telecom President Rene Obermann to stop treating its U.S. employees as second-class citizens.

Thus far, the company's U.S. management team has ignored the labor-management practices of its parent company and instead has become just like any other anti-union employer in the United States.

CWA is working to change that through its partnership with the German telecom workers' union, Ver.di, and the European labor federation, Union Network International. The goal is a global agreement with Deutsche Telecom that would give T-Mobile employees in the United States the same degree of respect enjoyed by the company's German and European workers.

CWA and Ver.di have created an organization, called TU, and a website, www.tuworkers.org, where T-Mobile workers in the United States, Germany and other European countries can share experiences and discuss workplace issues.

"As corporations become more global, unions around the world need to work together to protect workers' right to organize," said CWA President Larry Cohen.