In advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger, the Communications Workers of America called on the companies to commit to protecting workers' rights and not eliminating jobs, and threatened to oppose the deal if they won't make that commitment.
CWA conceded that the CEO of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, Tim Höttges, has said that the merger will create and repatriate jobs.
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But it wants that in a "binding" form at the FCC, which is vetting the deal along with the Department of Justice.
CWA said that according to its own analysis, the deal could result in more than 30,000 job losses stemming from closing 2,750 duplicative Boost (Sprint) and MetroPCS (T-Mobile) prepaid wireless stores.
"T-Mobile and Sprint must make a clear statement to regulators and to their employees that they will not interfere with union organizing activities and make binding guarantees to maintain, create and bring back jobs, without cutting current compensation for workers.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding its hearing Wednesday (June 27), creatively titled "Game of Phones: Examining the Competitive Impact of the T-Mobile – Sprint Transaction."
Scheduled to testify are T-Mobile CEO John Legere; Marcelo Claure, Sprint executive chair; Asha Keddy, VP of technology for Intel; Gene Kimmelman, president and CEO of Public Knowledge; Roslyn Layton, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and George Slover, senior policy counsel of Consumer's Union.
