T-Mobile social media support workers are trying to form a union

T-Mobile employees who work on the company's social media customer service team are trying to start a union. The creation of the T-Force Social Care Alliance was announced on Wednesday, with a letter tying their decision to pay cuts, layoffs, and management's lack of response to employees raising concerns about those issues.

The alliance claims that T-Mobile has cut monthly bonuses for T-Force and replaced them with micro-raises and an annual bonus. Workers could end up with thousands of dollars less per year if they can't keep their jobs. The layoffs the company has carried out over the past two years affected T- Force workers.

The Alliance believes that T-Mobile's senior leadership stopped focusing on the best interests of its front-line employees. The main purpose of forming this union is to protect ourselves from further pay cuts and layoffs during the economic downturn.

It is not currently negotiating with management or filing for a union election with the NEA. We are prepared for reprisals if T-Mobile management recognizes us as a legitimate union. We have the support we need to succeed very soon.

According to a report from More Perfect Union, the company hasn't historically been friendly to workers trying to organize, even earning a rebuke from the federal government for its illegal workplace rules. The T-Force workers are not centralized, which could make it harder to recruit new supporters, as they are using multiple methods of technology to communicate and organize.

Despite the wave of workplace unionizations at tech companies, customer service jobs, and even other carrier shops, the TCSA is heading into mostly unexplored waters. There are few, if any, other high-profile examples of social media customer support teams unionizing, and the process of organizing, voting for a union, and bargaining with management can be long and tedious.

T-Force employees are no strangers to long, drawn-out processes, and that's what the alliance is up to. It took months of hard work to get to the point of making Wednesday's announcement.