T-Mobile USA workers protest continuing union harassment

BELLEVUE (June 3, 2015) — The labor practices of telecom giant T-Mobile USA came under more scrutiny this week as workers protested Tuesday outside the company shareholder meeting to demand the end to harassment of workers fighting for collective bargaining rights. On March 18, T-Mobile US was found guilty of 11 violations of labor law.

At issue were illegal corporate nationwide policies that block workers from organizing or even talking to each other about problems at work. Workers throughout the T-Mobile USA system were subjected to and effectively silenced by these illegal policies; the judge’s order to rescind them covers 40,000 workers.

So far, the union reports that the company has not been complying with judicial orders.

Members of CWA-TU, the union of T-Mobile workers organized by the Communications Workers of America and the German services union ver.di, protested outside T-Mobile’s annual shareholder meeting Tuesday in Bellevue. They demanded: “T-Mobile, follow the judge’s orders and revoke your illegal corporate policies and inform your employees you will stop breaking the law!”

Eddie Aranda, who was recently fired by T-Mobile and Luis Castaneda, a senior representative at T-Mobile spoke at the shareholder event.

Carolina Figueroa, a T-Mobile USA call center worker in Albuquerque, N.M., recently spoke at the T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom shareholder meeting in Germany urging the company to stop worker harassment by management at its U.S. subsidiary and respect workers’ rights to organize.

“Does Deutsche Telekom want to take responsibility for the constant wrongdoings of American management?” Figueroa asked. “I ask the management board, why can’t you stop this? Why can’t you order T-Mobile to stay neutral? Too many of my co-workers have been disciplined and fired for their union activism.”