<div id="subtitle">US labor leaders team up with German union in bid to organize T-Mobile workers</div><div><p>Union officials in the United States are teaming up with their German counterparts in a bid to organize workers at wireless carrier T-Mobile USA.</p><p>Leaders at the Communications Workers of America said Wednesday that the new arrangement with German union ver.di will help show a "double standard" between how European companies treat workers in their home countries compared with the U.S.</p><p>T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom AG is known as a union-friendly model in Germany, where cooperation with unions is encouraged by labor laws. But CWA president Larry Cohen says T-Mobile USA has worked aggressively against union organizing since it entered the U.S. market nine years ago.</p><p>"We're tired of the two faces," Cohen said at a news conference announcing the joint union, to be called TUnion.</p><p>Cohen said the new "global union" would highlight the contrast between "the smiling face" that Deutsche Telekom presents to workers in Germany and "the club of intolerance" in the U.S.</p><p>Peter Dobrow, a spokesman for Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile USA, said employee satisfaction surveys show more than 70 percent of the company's 40,000 workers are "very satisfied" with their jobs.</p><p>"Despite the Communication Workers of America's periodic organizing efforts for more than nine years, no group of T-Mobile employees has ever chosen to be represented by a union," Dobrow said. "While our company is always striving to find ways to improve, year after year, employees continue to view T-Mobile as a good place to work where they have no need for, or interest in, a union."</p><p>Under the new TUnion, Cohen said CWA would continue to work with union members and telecom workers in the U.S., while ver.di would be responsible for relations with T-Mobile officials in Germany.</p><p>Ado Wilhelm, a ver.di officer and employee representative on the supervisory board of T-Mobile in Germany, said his union would use its relationship with the company to help support unionizing efforts in the U.S.</p><p>CWA represents about 700,000 communications workers nationwide and is trying to expand it ranks into the growing wireless sector. It currently has about 42,000 members in AT&T Mobility, but has struggled to penetrate other wireless carriers.</p><p>At the news conference, CWA presented a T-Mobile USA employee wearing a fake beard, false mustache, sunglasses and a baseball cap. The employee said he feared to show his face because he would face retribution from T-Mobile for speaking out in support of unionizing.</p><p>Dobrow said the U.S. company "respects the rights of unions to exist and recognizes and respects employees' rights to organize, or to refrain from organizing."</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=63678702&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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