News

On Wednesday, April 29, ver.di Chairman Frank Bsirske submitted a petition to the German Bundestag, urging the government to ensure that Deutsche Telekom enforce global labor rights standards at its US subsidiary T-Mobile US. The German government has a special responsibility for DT’s domestic and global conduct, since it owns 31.7% of Deutsche Telekom. (DT, in turn, owns 64% of T-Mobile)

UNI Global Union Head of ICTS, Alan Tate said, "This is an important initiative that exposes the violation of labour laws in the US by Deutsche Telekom and its subsidiary T-Mobile and calls upon the German Parliament to ensure that international labour standards are respected by German companies operating outside of Germany."

The petition committee of the Bundestag will review the petition and then post it online on its own platform. Once the petition is posted online, the German public has 30 days to sign it. Since October, tens of thousands of Deutsche Telekom workers have been collecting signatures at their workplaces. Once the 30 days have been reached, the online and offline signatures will be combined for a final count.

When the petition reaches 50,000 signatures, a public hearing at the Bundestag is triggered, and the issue will be debated. The German Trade Union Federation, DGB is supporting ver.di in its efforts to gather signatures. They are joined by numerous German unions, German political leaders, party foundations, and NGOs who have pledged their support for the online petition and help collect signatures.

Source: TU Connection #6