CWA commends T-Mobile US dealings at call centers
The Communications Workers of America is claiming victory over T-Mobile US in a recent policy change that CWA said resulted in the carrier announcing “several improvements” in how it deals with call center workers.
The workers union said the improvements impact the way T-Mobile US schedules thousands of call center workers around the country. Prior to the change, CWA claims, T-Mobile US allotted a certain number of “pre-approved time-off” hours that could be used by workers on a first come, first served basis. If a worker called in sick on a day that did not have any PRETO hours available, that worker received a negative review.
“We are happy that the company is addressing the very issue that we have been raising about scheduling problems over the past weeks,” said Ashley Charzuk, a T-Mobile US retention representative and member of TU, the union of T-Mobile US workers. “This is a huge success for workers, and it couldn’t have been accomplished without us union activists speaking out against unfair scheduling policies.”
The improvements, which CWA stated were instituted last month, included the doubling of available PRETO hours. Earlier this month, T-Mobile US was said to have announced it was considering separating vacation and sick time and that it planned to stop connecting a bad review with workers going over their PRETO hours.
CWA earlier this year asked T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom to “protect” worker rights at call centers based in Alabama that were set for expansion. That request came as CWA said T-Mobile US had yet to follow a National Labor Relations Board decision requiring the carrier to drop “illegal” policies that might “chill” an employee exercising the right to join a workers union.
T-Mobile US at the time downplayed the ruling, noting it was just a technical issue in the wording of its policies.
“This is simply a ruling about a technical issue in the law that relates to policies that are common to companies across the country,” T-Mobile US said in a statement. “There are no allegations that any employee has been impacted by these policies.”
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