Focus: Abuse at the workplace: Deutsche Telekom in the United States

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 3 Volume 20 Issue 4 2013 FOCUS ❐ RECOGNITION AND BARGAINING SYSTEMS Abuse at the Workplace: Deutsche Telekom in the United States The combative workplace recognition system in the US gives the employer a strong intervening role that can block workers’ efforts to establish a union TONY DALEY is a Research Economist at the Communications Workers of America (CWA). He coordinates the campaign for worker rights at T-Mobile US The Choices under US Labour Law US labour law establishes that a work unit can have only one employee representative. The law requires, however, that a majority of workers must choose their labour union and they must do so independently of influence from the employer . The law offers latitude in determining such a majority: the employer can accept individual statements of support from a majority of the workers, or the employer must accept a representation election supervised by the National Labour Relations Board (‘NLRB’). The company must not campaign for a union. The company, though, may campaign against the union. This gives management an inherent advantage since US unions have no guaranteed access to work premises. Instead, union representatives must meet with workers off-site and outside work hours. Inside the facility, workers may marshal arguments for collective representation during non-work time. In contrast, the employer is free to use work time to argue that employees should reject the union. US companies’ approach to workers’ freedom of association is varied. AT&T, the largest telecom company in the US, accepts union authorisation cards as a measure of support, using a third party (American Arbitration Association) to verify totals. When workers start signing up for representation, the company remains neutral and even trains lower level managers to refrain from comment about the organising effort. The Communications Workers of America (‘CWA’) represents 132,000 workers at AT&T of which 44,000 work for AT&T Mobility, the wireless provider. T-Mobile US (‘TMUS’) represents the other extreme. Controlled by the German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom, TMUS takes the position that it can only recognise a majority of workers demanding a union if an election takes place. It is unabashed in communicating its anti-union message, taking full advantage of the law’s provisions in terms of employer speech. Employees are forced to listen to managers harangue the labour movement and the CWA. Elections are plagued with management’s consistent badgering of employees to vote against the union. When pressed on worker rights, DT claims that it respects the law of countries in which it operates , but numerous complaints from the NLRB suggest otherwise. DT argues that it can only recognise a union representing a majority of workers in the US if there is an election. Managers retain ‘free speech’ rights to communicate actively and repeatedly to workers that the company opposes organising and union recognition. Corporate speech – in contrast to severely restricted employee speech – is the wedge used F or the last twenty-five years, income in the US has shifted to the wealthiest Americans. Workers’ wages have stagnated while productivity (output per hour of work) has increased by 25 percent. Median weekly earnings between 2004 and 2013 were down 1 percent in real terms. This divergent trend between wages and productivity means that working people are not reaping the gains of economic growth in the United States. In real terms, the national minimum wage is worth 23 percent less than in 1968. 46.5 million people live in poverty in the US, bringing the official poverty rate to 15 percent. The Economic Policy Institute found that the annual compensation of top CEOs has risen 835 percent since 1978 while private sector pay has risen 5 percent. The assault on labour unions drives this inequality. The pervasive use of union avoidance consultants has discouraged workers from exercising their rights. The percentage of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement has shrunk to under 7 percent in the private sector. The labour movement’s political force is incapable of moderating the zeal of the Right. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (‘NLRA’) – the foundation of American labour law – states that it is public policy to encourage ‘the exercise by workers of full freedom of...