T-Mobile Caught Red-Handed

T-Mobile workers face tremendous pressure to meet unrealistic and punishing sales goals, forcing them to mislead customers and enroll them in unwanted services.

A new report titled "Under Pressure at the Uncarrier: How Hard-Selling at T-Mobile Hurts Employees and Customers," exposes a sales culture at T-Mobile US that is built on questionable sales tactics enforced by threats of discipline or loss of income. The report was produced by the Change to Win research group, which looks to expose corporate wrongdoing and strengthen consumer protections and workers' rights.

Sales metrics often change without warning and managers are constantly pushing employees to add more accessories, insurance, and lines to customers' bills. T-Mobile workers can even end up in nearly inescapable sales goal "debt" that gradually decreases their pay over time:

Workers report that they have been disciplined or made to attend sales "coaching" meetings on their days off for missing goals. One said, "If you don't meet your goals you get lower hours, and when you have less hours it becomes harder to meet your goals. It becomes a cycle hard to get out of."

As a result, 83 percent of T-Mobile salespeople said they felt pressure to add products and services that customers did not explicitly request.

The report confirms what many frontline workers have been saying as they build T-Mobile Workers United (TU), and join with their colleagues in CWA Local 6457. T-Mobile management is refusing to meet with TU to create a metrics system that works for consumers, the workers, and the company, and in fact has tried to create a "fake union" completely controlled by management.

Read The Washington Post’s story about aggressive sales goals at T-Mobile here.