June 2014

Labor activists are accusing T-Mobile of labor violations ahead of the company's annual shareholder meeting.

They say the telecommunications company is not treating US workers fairly by discouraging them from unionizing.

"Worldwide, and especially in Germany where T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom is based, T-Mobile workers benefit from better protections than their American counterparts because of an employee union," the activists wrote in a petition to the company.

At the shareholder meeting, the Marco Consulting Group will call on T-Mobile's board of directors to conduct a human rights risk assessment. Nearly 28,000 protesters have signed the petition demanding that the company stop violating the rights of US workers.

Matrix Telecom, a telecommunications company headquartered in Irving, Texas, will pay $875,000 to resolve an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau into whether the company failed to complete long-distance calls to rural areas on a just, reasonable, and non-discriminatory basis.

Matrix will also implement a three-year plan to ensure compliance with FCC requirements designed to combat the serious problem of long-distance calls failing to complete in rural areas.

“Our nation’s telecommunications laws are based on the fundamental promise that all Americans should be able to call each other wherever they may be located,” said Travis LeBlanc, Acting Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. “Rural America should not be treated differently, and we will continue to enforce the law to fulfill this promise.”

In its consent decree with the Enforcement Bureau, Matrix has agreed to:

• Make a payment of $875,000 to the US Treasury;
• Develop and implement a comprehensive compliance plan designed, among other things, to ensure future compliance with applicable laws;
• Designate a senior corporate manager to serve as a compliance officer focusing on rural call completion issues;
• Cooperate with the FCC and rural local exchange carriers to establish a testing program to evaluate rural call completion performance whenever complaints or data indicate problems;
• Notify intermediate providers (companies that Matrix uses to deliver calls) that may be causing call completion problems and analyze and resolve such problems as soon as practicable;
• Cease using intermediate providers that fail to improve their performance;
• Report to the FCC any noncompliance with the consent decree within 15 days; and
• File an initial compliance report in 90 days and annual reports for three years.

The chairs of a couple of Federal Communications Commission oversight subcommittees in the House have asked the FCC for an "update" on its current workload and "backlog of issues" currently pending.

That came in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Tim Murphy (R-PA).

Rep Walden has been a big supporter of FCC process reform, including helping achieve House passage of the FCC Process Reform Act, which passed the House in March.

“In order to better understand the scope of the commission’s challenge, we respectfully request that the commission update the committee on current workload, the magnitude of the current backlog of issues pending before the commission and its bureaus, and efforts to manage current and backlogged work," they wrote. The Representatives said the report included reforms that, if instituted, would improve "transparency, efficiency and responsiveness.”

[Commentary] The clock is rapidly expiring on the 113th Congress. While in the rest of the world, the beginning of June signals a nearing to the midpoint of the year, in Congress during an even-numbered election year, when the calendar flips to June, it signals a mere 10 workweeks until the end of the federal government's fiscal year.

Whether Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) or Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) runs the House, this calendar remains as the July Fourth and August recesses allow members to stay connected with their constituents back home.

Everyone who has been in Washington for any length of time knows this time table. It focuses the minds of lawmakers on what can be accomplished and what cannot as the Congress draws near a close. One prime example where the clock is in danger of running out on a law is the re-authorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA).

A clean bill, without controversial amendments, would very likely pass before Congress adjourns, but amendments being considered by retiring Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) could serve as poison pills to the whole process. At the urging of pay-television advocates, the Democratic majority on the committee would use the expiring law to create a new set of regulatory regimes that cripple the local broadcaster's ability to survive.

STELA is the law which, at least partially, governs the relationship between local broadcasters and pay-television providers. Unfortunately, Sen Rockefeller's committee is considering amendments to STELA which benefit pay-television providers to the detriment of those who produce local content.

Even on Capitol Hill, it should be clear that the federal government compelling a private business to provide its services to another private business without a contractually agreed-upon payment price is wrong and should be rejected. Yet that is exactly what the pay-television industry hopes to put into reauthorization language dooming the bill.

[Manning is is vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government]