Verizon Wireless’s union-busting efforts exposed

The Guardian has obtained a series of anti-union documents distributed by Verizon Wireless’s human resources department to managers and employees. The documents disparage previous unionization efforts and encourage Verizon staff to use anti-union rhetoric, including misleading claims that unions offer “empty promises and unrealistic expectations” and don’t act with “integrity.”

The story comes weeks after Verizon settled an unfair labor practice charge where Verizon interrogated and surveilled an employee engaging in union activity. Last year, unionized Verizon Wireless employees at several Brooklyn retail stores voted against the company’s effort to decertify the union. Verizon Wireless workers across the country continue to fight for a union and a voice in their workplace.

“The first thing they do is come and say how awful the union will be for us and if we go union, they can’t do anything special for you. They would come out and, not directly, say ‘unions, sometimes their stores sometimes get closed,’ trying to entice us in any way to vote no,” said Darryl Givens, a Verizon retail employee. “They would call us in, do forced meetings with us, and go over how awful unions are. Every few days we’d get rotated back in.”

There is a widespread disregard for labor rights in the wireless industry, including at T-Mobile and Sprint. T-Mobile, for instance, has been guilty of violating US labor law six times since 2015 and has been subject to approximately 40 unfair labor practice charges since 2011. Sprint’s violation of workers’ rights dates back to the landmark La Conexion Familiar case, in which Sprint fired 226 employees and closed its Spanish-language telemarketing center in San Francisco to avoid a union election. The unionization rate of the retail wireless labor market currently stands at nine percent and almost entirely at AT&T Mobility.
 

Links:

'It's union busting 101': documents reveal Verizon's attacks on organized labor (The Guardian, Jan. 16, 2019)

Fact sheet: How the T-Mobile-Sprint merger will impact jobs (CWA, 2018)