T-Mobile Call Center Takes Public Subsidies, Then Dumps Workers

T-Mobile has been shedding workers from a central Maine call center, even though the company had accepted millions of tax dollars to create jobs in the state. Keri Evinson, executive vice-president of Local 1400 of the Communications Workers of America, told Maine public broadcasting, that T-Mobile should either deliver the 900 jobs they've promised, or return their public subsidies.

"Unfortunately they've received $7.4 million in subsidies from the state of Maine. They promised jobs here and we've seen them in the last six to eight months go from a 750-person call center to a 395-person call center. It's just not right," Evinson said.

T-Mobile received $7.4 million in tax breaks and state assistance when, in 2005, it located a call center at the FirstPark complex in Oakland, Maine. In return, says CWA, the company promised to create 900 jobs. Instead, rapid job cuts have left the center with fewer than half that number, but T-Mobile continues to file for tax breaks. CWA points out that T-Mobile no longer deserves public assistance.

For its part, T-Mobile denies it ever promised any specific number of employment slots, although it admits it has, and continues to draw millions from the state of Maine. Although T-Mobile also insists there have been no significant layoffs, Channel 6 in Portland, Maine, found otherwise:

"Local business owners say they've already noticed a difference with the loss of those employees. If the call center does go under, they say it could be detrimental to the area, not just Oakland."

The Washington-based research group Good Jobs First released a report for CWA in 2009 in which it detailed T-Mobile's public assistance payments.

According to the Waterville, Maine Morning Sentinel, Good Jobs First reported:

"The Oakland call center was created in a Pine Tree Development Zone, the report says, enabling it to receive employment tax increment financing. In 2008, for example, it received $793,000 in tax breaks for having 794 jobs, according to the report. The company had received $2.19 million in tax breaks in its first four years of operation and was on track to receive another $4.7 million over the next six years."

In all, these developments underscore what CWA has pointed out repeatedly: that T-Mobile is a declining company, one that is already cutting costs by slashing jobs. The best hope for the tottering telecom is the proposed merger with AT&T, a company that has promised not only to retain jobs, but to repatriate 5,000 outsourced jobs if the two companies are merged.

Union questions T-Mobile: Labor groups see disconnect between company's public subsidies, job creation (Morning Sentinel)

Oakland concerned about T-Mobile's future (WCSH6 Portland)

Unions Take T-Mobile to Task over Maine Call Center Jobs (Maine Public Broadcasting Network)