Friday, May 17, 2013

We have been in Dusseldorf all day. The group, Ado, Kornela, and Frank Bethke (leader of ver.di in the state), Jupp Bednarski (deputy chair of the DT group works council), and Stephan Heggemann (head of the works council at the DT call center in Dusseldorf). We had a long meeting with the Minister of Labor for North Rhine Westphalia Guntram Schneider. He belongs to the SPD and was a former leader of the metalworkers (IG Metall). He took two hour out of his schedule to meet with us and to hear the tales of abuse and union avoidance at T-Mobile. The stories we told shocked him as much as they did our political friends in Berlin. He concluded that it was short-sighted for the company to be so consistently anti-union – image the publicity the company would receive for being pro-active on freedom of association! We invited Herr Schneider to visit the U.S., and he promised his continuing support.

We then took a tram over to the Land (state-level) ver.di offices. We had lunch and good conversation with the Executive Board of ver.di North Rhine Westphalia. Conny Parisi-Bohmholt presented us with a solidarity banner with dozens or DT retail worker signatures. This spurred a conversation about building a retail partnership between DT T-shop workers and T-Mobile retail workers. Tammy then presented Angela Bonn from Dortmund with a banner signed by CWA District 6 local leaders during the CWA convention last month.

We also displayed T-shirts that had just been made that stated, “We are all Joshes,’ above a picture of Josh Coleman (Wichita worker fired for his political activism). Below the picture was the statement “No Union-Busting.” The group and the ver.di executive board then donned t-shirts for a photo opportunity. Ver.di will be engaging in action days at both the Dortmund and Dusseldorf call centers with workers en masse wearing the T-shirt.

Afterwards, we took cabs to the Dusseldorf call center where we spent three hours with the works council and ver.di shop stewards, discussing common issues and how to improve our cooperation.

The exchange of stories was useful. Metrics are important in Germany, as we had heard in Berlin, but primarily for the team. Team managers do not know individual scores, only team scores. We talked to a coach, a ver.di member, and she talked about pushing teams to succeed. When we asked her about punishing individuals for bad scores, she looked like she had sucked on a lemon.

No one is interested in punishing the individual. In Deutsche Telekom Customer Service North Rhine-Westphalia, there are roughly 3,300 workers. In the first quarter 2013, there have been 53 dismissals that were involuntary – typically absenteeism – but the vast majority of these dismissals concerned trainees. Among those workers who had passed their 6-month probationary period, there were perhaps 2 employees who were fired during these three months. Compare these results with the turnover rates in the U.S.!

As the get-together wound down, we presented the works council with a banner signed by CWA District 3 leaders during convention. Stephan said it would be posted. This call center visit truly centered our partnership work: we listened, we strategized, and we enjoyed each other. Together we are more powerful than apart.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

We left the hotel at 7:30 and walked a kilometer to the Cologne hockey arena for the Deutsche Telekom Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. We met up with Stephan and Moritz from Düsseldorf; Angela and Markus from Dortmund; and another 35-40 activists. When everyone arrived we got our flyers for distribution and spread out around the arena to hand them out. Shortly before the meeting, top management and directors arrived. We had a good conversation with Michael Sommer, head of the DGB, president of the ITUC, but also member of the Supervisory Board of DT.  We also met Dr. Ulrich Lehner and snapped some photos. Marion Schick, Chief Human Resources Officer at DT, greeted the group. Meanwhile, there was press all over the place. Westdeutsche Rundfund, one of the largest radio chains, did an interview with Ado. Suddeutsche Zeitung interviewed Sara. The major TV, radio, and newspapers were present.

We received our entry tickets from Kornelia Dubbel and joined the 5,000 other attendees to enter the arena for the 10 AM meeting. Lehner led off the meeting but handed the podium over to CEO René Obermann who proceeded to give his farewell speech. He reviewed “accomplishments” at the company since he became CEO, and touched on each part of the DT footprint – in a good hour. Around noon, the first block of four shareholders spoke. (The order of speakers is determined by the number of shares the speaker wields.) This first block consisted of bankers and hedge fund folks. Under German shareholder rules, the company must answer all questions posed. It uses a number of staffers to write answers for the CEO or other members of the management team.

Kornelia led off the second block with a blistering attack on the behavior of TMUS. She raised the dunce cap and the “Monkey back” – forcing managers of “poor performers” to where a backpack with a monkey on it, symbolizing the “monkey on her back” of poor metrics. She slammed the company for its decision time process – the stage of the dismissal process whereby an employee is forced to turn in his/her badge, go home, and write an essay about why he/she should continue at T-Mobile. She talked about people who had been fired for no apparent reason – except perhaps their union activity.

Victoria Singer was the fourth speaker in this block of four investors. She gave a brief introduction in English and let Lars deliver the speech in German. Victoria stated that thousands of Deutsche Telekom workers had conferred their shares to her in an act of solidarity. She led off pointing out how DT likes “engaged” employees and how the work processes in the U.S. served exactly the opposite – the humiliation, the intolerance of error, the union-busting. She spoke at length about the firing of top-performer Josh Coleman who broke no known policy. She pointed out that the abusive work practices were not increasing productivity but instead losing customers.

As she left the podium and headed back to her seat, Victoria was “stuck at how many members of the audience gave me approving smiles and thumbs up sign. Several people approached me with comments. One person told me ‘don’t let Big Magenta swallow you up.’ Another told me ‘keep up the resistance.’”

We had to wait until 3:30 to get all the answers to questions but they were phenomenal. She talked about the recent company survey that found that 83% of workers are proud to be T-Mobile and that 83% had an open relationship with management. She talked of a delegation that just returned from U.S. after visiting 4 call centers, and they were pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness and ingenuity of American employees. She justified the decision time essays as part of the “management of knowledge.” Mrs. Schick liked the idea of engaged workers being more productive but if there were issues, they should go to their immediate supervisors. When that statement was translated, all four T-Mobile workers smiled.

“It’s really sad,” reflected Victoria, “that even when T-Mobile is confronted with the facts, with compelling stories, they still continue to lie and “hold the company line” by just denying everything. It feels like the kid caught with his crumbs on his face and his hand in the cookie jar but swears he didn’t eat any cookies.”

The other T-Mobile workers just shook their heads. Tammy crystallized what many of us were thinking: “it’s becoming clearer and clearer that these DT executives do NOT have a real sense of what is happening at T-Mobile US. The data is flawed, and Ms. Schick does not seem to be open to finding out what is really happening in the U.S. She lives in a bubble.”

Victoria, Eddie, Sara, Arnise, Tammy, Tony