Enlightened Self-Interest
At the Huffington Post, Art Brodsky weighs in from the left on liberal and union support for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger:
But what’s in it for the (Communications Workers of America)? Remember that figure that allowing AT&T to buy T-Mobile will give 20,000 employees “a real opportunity” to form a union. What that number doesn’t tell you is that T-Mobile in 2009 was named “one of the 100 best companies to work for” by Fortune magazine, the first telecom company to be so included. Avoiding layoffs and having generous child care subsidies were the reasons they were included.
More to the point, T-Mobile now has about 40,000 employees. So CWA took half of them right off the top, assuming that their partner, job-killing but unionized AT&T, wouldn’t keep them around.
The bottom line: for a chance — just a chance – to get 20,000 new members, CWA is willing to lead progressive organizations and Democrats into a world in which AT&T and the (nonunion) Verizon Wireless rule the air, creating that almost duopoly, setting up a GSM monopoly, squeezing out smaller players and setting the stage for higher prices, fewer features on phones, and more stringent bandwidth caps. Or just about anything else those two companies want to do as their protectors in Congress (hint: not usually Democrats) will resist regulation to the bitter end claiming the “market” will solve all and that we couldn’t possibly have regulation.
It’s evident CWA is following an accepted path of enlightened self-interest. It’s not so evident why others who should know better follow them.
