T-Mobile workers launch first union campaign since merger with Sprint
T-Mobile, the world’s largest Telecom company since merging with Sprint in 2020, has aggressively opposed unionization efforts at the company, with numerous labor law violations upheld by the National Labor Relations Board for retaliating against workers engaged in union activity and attempting to create a company controlled union.
Shortly after merging with Spring, T-Mobile cut around 5,000 jobs by the end of 2020, despite claims ahead of the merger that it would create jobs. T-Mobile employs around 75,000 workers as of December 2021, with only small units of workers who have successfully formed unions, such as a store in Pinole, California in 2019 and technicians in Connecticut in 2011.
On 12 October, T-Mobile social media customer service care workers went public with a campaign to form a union, the T-Force Social Care Alliance, citing ongoing job cuts across the company that have impacted their department and recent pay cuts they’ve received. The group didn’t provide a number of workers they are seeking to include in a bargaining unit, but affirmed they already have majority support from workers to unionize.
“We used to get, based on performance, a pay structure, between $2 to $7 an hour, based on performance, and essentially what happened was they took that away this year and they said we're going to have annual bonus and didn't give us any details,” said Tyler Roquemore, a social media care specialist at T-Mobile for ten years and organizer. “Part of the reason we're unionizing is to protect ourselves moving forward. People are on the edge of their seats with whether or not they're going to have a job any day.”
Roquemore noted workers weren’t provided specific numbers on the layoffs that impacted their department, but that it has heightened anxiety among workers over the prospect of the lack of job security and transparency in the job and pay compared to T-Mobile top executive compensation.
After the merger with Sprint, T-Mobile paid their top executives $255 mn. In 2021, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert received $22.6 mn in total compensation, 312 times the median salary of T-Mobile employees.
“We work through Twitter and Facebook, whenever customers reach out, we're that team, and we've been supporting customers lovingly and we want to continue to do that,” added Roquemore.
Union organizing has picked up in the past year, with a 53 percent increase in union election petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board in fiscal year 2022, the highest number of petitions filed since fiscal year 2016, and workers winning union elections for the first time at Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, REI, and upcoming union elections at Home Depot and Lowe’s.
T-Mobile did not immediately respond to a request for comment.