Yet More Layoffs Hit Sprint/T-Mobile, Despite Promises This Assuredly Wouldn't Happen
from the refusing-to-learn-from-experience dept
Before regulators signed off on T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger with Sprint, executives like former CEO John Legere told anybody who’d listen that the merger would create oodles of new jobs from “day one.” With the ink barely dry on the deal, it’s abundantly clear that’s not happening.
Last month, T-Mobile laid off an estimated 6,000 employees from its Metro prepaid division, layoffs that had everything to do with the merger, and nothing to do with the COVID-19 crisis. And on June 15th, hundreds of Sprint employees were unceremoniously fired as part of a six minute conference call during which nobody was allowed to ask questions:
“In a conference call on Monday lasting under six minutes, T-Mobile vice president James Kirby told hundreds of Sprint employees that their services were no longer needed. He declined to answer his employees? questions, citing the ?personal? nature of employee feedback, and ended the call.”
Cool. Cool.
This was all ridiculously predictable. There’s 40 years of documented US telecom history showing that the elimination of a major competitor reduces competition and raises prices (oh hi, Comcast). Global markets (Canada, Ireland) have also made this clear. Such deals almost universally result in thousands of layoffs as redundant retail, support, and management positions are culled. It’s why similar deals of this type (AT&T’s 2011 acquisition of T-Mobile, T-Mobile’s 2014 acquisition of Sprint) were blocked. This isn’t a debate topic. It’s not a murky subject. Telecom consolidation routinely ends badly for employees and customers.
Economists made all of these points to the DOJ and FCC, but they were unceremoniously ignored. First by an FCC that couldn’t bother to even read its own staff analysis before rubber stamping the a merger it helped cook up behind closed doors, then by a DOJ whose “antitrust” boss personally escorted the deal to fruition while ignoring all criticism.
If you go back and look at some of ex-CEO John Legere’s blog posts from a few months ago (which I’m sure won’t be around much longer), the CEO repeatedly promised that the merger would be “job positive” from “day one”:
“So, let me be really clear on this increasingly important topic. This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter. That?s not just a promise. That?s not just a commitment. It?s a fact. To achieve what we?re setting out to do ? become the supercharged Un-carrier that delivers new value, ignites competition and delivers nationwide real 5G for All ? the New T-Mobile will provide an amazing and compelling set of services for consumers.”
Legere was so breathlessly offended by statements to the contrary, he tried to insist that union officials were lying — before reminding everybody he testified under oath about the deal’s looming job explosion:
“We also keep seeing the opposition try to use projected layoff numbers from an analyst?s projections that were based on a completely different deal at a completely different point in time to discredit this merger. It?s SO bad that the head of the Communications Workers Association (CWA) was bold enough to refer to those completely unrelated numbers in a CONGRESSIONAL HEARING. I guess if the real numbers don?t tell the story you want, you can just make up new ones? It?s actually offensive. At the hearings, I raised my right hand and swore under oath to tell the TRUTH… and the truth is that the New T-Mobile will CREATE JOBS.”
In the last two months alone we’ve seen 6,000+ non-Covid related layoffs and a 12 hour merger outage (purportedly due to merger integration headaches), so clearly everything is going swimmingly.
For T-Mobile, the COVID-19 crisis comes at an opportune time. It will allow the company to blame any layoffs on the pandemic, even if industry insiders have made it clear the layoffs were inevitable and already in the works. Meanwhile, John Legere has since sold his $17.5 million NYC penthouse in NYC To Giorgio Armani, and is likely already hard at work on his next act, during which we’ll all pretend none of this ever happened. So as usual, we’ll learn absolutely nothing from mergermania history, leaving us to repeat the process all over again down the lane.
Filed Under: competition, fcc, jobs, john legere, layoffs, mergers
Companies: sprint, t-mobile
Comments on “Yet More Layoffs Hit Sprint/T-Mobile, Despite Promises This Assuredly Wouldn't Happen”
Hey, the media reported that the job claims weren’t true, so it’s not like they lied, right?
Makes one wonder
How did the tobacco industry manage to get on the hook for smoking-related health hazards? It would seem like decades of denial in straight opposition to the facts are a perfectly workable strategy.
Re: Makes one wonder
See also: lead, asbestos, fossil fuels, any chemical industry…
congress isn’t worried! they’ve had their ‘bonuses’, fuck everyone else! self-serving assholes!!
Re: Congress
…Congress is now freely spending TRILLIONS of Dollars it does not have — and was deeply in debt long before the pandemic.
Congress is thoroughly irresponsible and will destroy the US economy if congressional politicians continues their plunder.
Layoffs across the economy are the norm now.
The US economy is formally in Recession and will formally enter Depression this fall.
Dollar debasement/inflation will devastate the standard of living of all but the wealthiest Americans.
Worry about that.
Re: Re: Congress
Thanks Donald
I don’t believe lies. I just don’t.
Let’s see, made blatant lies to the public, to regulators, to congress under oath, called those noting facts that undermine his position liars, selling out and screwing over hundreds of his own employees, and (potentially) thousands of his former customers. Is that correct? Looks like someone has an eye on political office in 2024! Any word on sexual harassment claims? Not to worry, there’s still plenty of time.
It seems John Legere has admitted to perjuring himself before Congress. I wait with bated breath for his eventual arrest and trial.
Re: Re:
He still has more than enough hit points on his bank account.
It’s a Richard Bennett promise, what did you expect? Honesty? Accuracy?
Take It Back
Now that the basis for the merger has been revealed to be untrue, the unemployed workers ought to have recourse to undo the merger and get their jobs back.
Sadly, there probably isn’t any legal mechanism to roll back a merger based on faulty premises.
The only solution I can think of is that in the future, employee unions should attempt to sign a long term contract with the merging companies, and when the corporations refuse, use that as evidence during the merger approval process.
Re: Take It Back
T-mobile regularly abuses the law regardless. They sign union contracts, then "secretly" approach workers one-by-one to fire them illegally and openly say "if you don’t basically agree to quit right now, and tell the union it was YOUR decision to go, we will fuck your entire career over and make sure you’re made totally unemployable".
They’ve even blatantly told workers they want rid of (who haven’t done anything wrong) that they will ‘hint’ publicly that they were fired for sex offences.
They did this in the UK, the US and Europe. They’re law-breaking scum.
Not what I would have done, but you do you I guess
Reminding people that he lied under oath is a… strange tactic to be sure, but I guess since the deal has already gone through and no-one with the power to hold him accountable has the interest to do so it’s a safe enough one.
I got laid off today.
Just got off of a conference call with some execs. The entire consumer credit team has been let go effective July 17th.
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