T-Mobile Worker is Part of White House Summit on Worker Voice

At the White House Summit on Worker Voice, held Oct. 7, workers talked about their struggle to make ends meet despite working two jobs, the fight they face from employers who are blocking their right to a union voice, and how unions and labor organizations are fighting back in innovative ways.

T-Mobile worker Abigail Parrish with CWA President Chris Shelton outside the White House.

The day-long session brought together workers, union leaders, including CWA President Chris Shelton, worker advocates, and businesses to explore ways to ensure that working Americans can share in the U.S.'s economic growth. President Obama addressed the group, stressing that "we need to look at different ways of organizing, we need to update our labor laws and we need new tools to bring people together. We also need to engage businesses to lead the way."

"We should be making it easier, not harder, for folks to join a union. We should be strengthening our labor laws, not rolling them back. And for contractors or workers who can't join unions, we should be finding new avenues for them to join together and advocate for themselves as well," he said.

Abigail Parrish, a T-Mobile US customer service representative at the call center in Wichita, Kans., was part of a panel on Worker Voice Making a Difference: Rebutting the False Choice.

Here is some of the message she delivered to participants:

I really enjoy the job, and I love interacting with customers, but there are also a lot of issues at T-Mobile. The job is not well paid. We have to deal with unreasonable performance metrics that are very hard to meet, unfair and erratic scheduling stresses workers out and the biggest issue is probably that we have no voice at work.

We have no voice to raise our concerns. We have no say in anything that happens at work, and whenever workers are trying to speak out, the company retaliates against them.

My co-workers and I are working on organizing a union at our workplace, but it has been hard. Many workers have been retaliated against, some people have been fired and that just creates a culture of fear at the workplace. We know a lot of workers support us, but they are too afraid to come out of the woodwork.

One of my co-workers said it best when she said: 'When you come out in support of the union, you feel like there is this big X on the back of your head. That the company is out to get you.'

I think, in a free workplace, you should not have to be afraid to voice your concerns. You should not feel like you are targeted. You shouldn't have to keep it a secret, when you fight for your rights.