Evergreen Reporter

While the COMMUNICATION WORKERS OF AMERICA (CWA) has been attempting to unionize T-Mobile over the past several years, there have been at least 14 news articles about T-Mobile written by journalists who are part of the NewsGuild, a part of CWA, that have been negative about the company.

The tone of the articles makes it look as though the CWA is using its own union members to write negative stories involving T-Mobile because it has been resisting being unionized.

One such article, written in June, touches on T-Mobile's petition with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in which T-Mobile asked the commission eliminate a 1,000 new jobs requirement. T-Mobile also asked for extra years to meet the 5G build-out requirements.

That article notes that T-Mobile believes that when it agreed to other conditions by the federal government before completing its merger with Sprint in April, that it did not have to wait for California's approval. CPUC believes, however, that T-Mobile does and imposed its own conditions before it approved of the merger.

Another article, also published in June, talks about T-Mobile cutting jobs after its merger with Sprint. The cuts came after the COVID-19 pandemic changed how cellphone users shop, therefore facilitating the need for the change.

A November 2019 article in Bloomberg Law discusses a "fake ring tone" scheme in which rural carriers alleged that T-Mobile was playing fake ring tones instead of connecting calls to rural parts of the country in order to avoid paying routing charges.

A People's World article in October discusses a case wherein the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) approved company unions when using a T-Mobile case, with which CWA was unhappy. The article points out that President Trump had appointed the three appointees to the board and also noted they were all Republicans.

In September two articles written by NewsGuild agencies — The Verge and Reuters — reported on a lawsuit against T-Mobile filed by New York City that alleged it preyed on consumers. The lawsuit alleged that T-Mobile and its subsidiary Metro, would sell phones at discounts, but then add the tax at the pre-discount cost. It also alleged there was an issue with a money-back guarantee.

In that lawsuit, T-Mobile issued a statement saying it was investigating the allegations but that the allegations were at odds with what the company stands for.