This is the first update on DailyKos from our campaign for justice at T-Mobile. Find out about members of Congress urging Deutsche Telekom to end the union avoidance at T-Mobile, news from the wireless industry and ever so exciting speculations about the iPhone.
Members of US Congress sent Letter to Deutsche Telekom CEO Obermann
The RealT-Mobile is part of TU, the alliance of ver.di and CWA. Both unions are working hard to develop alliances to put pressure on Deutsche Telekom management to end the aggressive union intolerance campaign in the United States. In early May, a group of 26 Democratic members of Congress, among them George Miller, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, Robert Andrews, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee, and Lynn Woolsey, Chairwoman of the Workforce Protection Subcommittee, wrote CEO René Obermann questioning why the company insisted on treating American workers as second class workers in terms of union representation.
As members of Congress, we urge you to implement parity in labor relations between Deutsche Telekom Germany and T-Mobile USA. DT should make certain that it is no more difficult for its American workers to join a union than it is for its German workers. Indeed, if the American and global recoveries from the current financial crisis are to be sustainable, they must be recoveries built on fairness. Workers must be permitted, without interference, to exercise their right to organize and bargain for a fair share in the economic growth their productivity makes possible. When this freedom is curtailed, our economy suffers.
On the first of July 7 Republicans, among them Steven C. La Tourette (OH), Candice Miller (MI) and Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI) stepped up to the plateand addressed precisely the same problem.
"We are concerned that management in the U.S. is starkly different and largely ignores these protections. For instance, management in the U.S. distributed a manual in 2003 to supervisors on how to prevent employees from joining a union, and in 2008, management distributed a memo with much of the same information. Many of these activities have repeatedly put the company before the National Labor Relations Board, and we are concerned about the effects and implications of this continuing policy and treatment for U.S. workers."
We at the RealT-Mobile thank our friends for working with us!
We have followed closely the Obama administration's National Broadband Plan. Among its many provisions, the plan will free up additional spectrum for wireless providers and their data-hungry smartphones. Let's hope the new management team, headed by Philipp Humm will reverse spending priorities and shift resources to capital expenditures.
There has been considerable speculation – some of which we have reported on – about which wireless carrier after AT&T Mobility will get the iPhone. Maybe it will be Verizon Wireless, maybe T-Mobile. Interestingly, T-Mobile USA's parent company Deutsche Telekom already has the iPhone and it has attracted customers. We report on rumors that DT may lose its exclusive deal with Apple.
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