Deutsche Telekom Workers in Germany Join TU!

Our partners at ver.di, Germany’s second-largest labor union and the union representing workers at T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom (DT), are helping to build solidarity with our co-workers in Germany.

During an event last week at a DT call center in Dusseldorf, shop stewards Stephan Heggemann and Iris Sonnenschein shared information with DT workers about conditions at T-Mobile—including unfair metrics and schedules—and the effort by T-Mobile workers in the US to organize their union with TU-CWA. More than 150 members of ver.di joined TU.

For ver.di members who have long supported TU members in the US, joining TU is an opportunity to strengthen relationships with their co-workers in the US and to spread the word about DT’s double standard among their German co-workers. The company respects workers’ rights to collective bargaining in Germany, but refuses to even meet with representatives of TU in the US.

According to ver.di activists like Moritz Heggemann, it’s essential for workers at multi-national corporations to build relationships across borders.

“For me, it is important to show to the colleagues in the US with concrete numbers of members how many workers in Germany back them,” said Heggemann. “I also believe that a common association strengthens cooperation and the sense of unity.”

Activists at ver.di plan to take their message to other German call centers this fall and sign up hundreds of workers at DT. The goal is to continue building relationships among DT and T-Mobile workers and to organize more joint actions in the US and Germany that demonstrate to DT and T-Mobile the power of solidarity among workers.