The Communications Workers of America have launched a Web site (TMobileSprintfacts.org) and Twitter handle (@TMSprintFacts) to lobby against approval of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.
The merger would reduce the top four wireless carriers to three, but T-Mobile and Sprint argue that it will boost competition because it will mean a stronger competitor to the top two, AT&T and Verizon Communications.
But the CWA, which represents 700,000 workers in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada, views it through a different lens and doesn't like what it sees.
“The proposed merger would result in 30,000 lost jobs, higher prices for consumers, and still leave rural America without access to high-speed broadband," CWA research and telecommunications policy director Debbie Goldman said. The new website is intended to provide "the facts" in the face of unsubstantiated claims of the merger's benefits, she said.
The CWA has filed a motion with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) — it has 57,000 members in the state — asking to be added as a party to the CPUC review of the proposed merger. State public utility regulators get to weigh in on mergers, given their impact on local telecommunications service and competition.
Back in June, T-Mobile and Sprint filed the deal with the FCC, promising in their public interest statement that the deal would actually create more jobs as well as more choice in video and business service, and world-class 5G service, while lowering consumer prices and helping close the rural high-speed divide.
The deal is an all-stock merger that values the combined company at $146 billion including debt.
