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US: Union comes our against Sprint/T-Mobile merger

By  |  August 28, 2018

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that represents 700,000 workers, is the latest group to disparage the potential telecoms merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, argued in a letter that over 28,000 jobs would be lost should the deal go through as it stands. The group came to that figure by performing analyses based on location data for all retailers involved in the merger.

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    According to the group, 24,000 retail jobs would be lost due to overlapping on the prepaid and postpaid sides of both T-Mobile and Sprint. Another 4,500 jobs at the Sprint and T-Mobile headquarters would be lost because of duplicated positions.

    “The proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger is against the public interest,” said CWA President Chris Shelton. “The merger would result in massive job losses totaling more than 28,000, while offering no countervailing benefits for the public. Unless the companies make a binding commitment not to eliminate jobs in their proposed merger, to stop violating federal labor laws, and to fully respect workers’ rights, the FCC should not approve this merger.”

    Additionally, the CWA has argued that the merger “raises serious competitive concerns,” as the competition between T-Mobile and Sprint would no longer exist. Both T-Mobile and Sprint are able to exist as standalone operations, and both are looking to improve their networks and roll out their own 5G networks.

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