ABSTRACT
The US telecommunications industry has recently faced employee strikes, which occurred simultaneously with the presidential primaries, therefore drawing the attention of the candidates. For example, the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders joined the strike of over 40,000 Verizon wireline employees (Siemaszko, 2016), while his rival, Hillary Clinton, harshly criticized the corporate giant for wanting to outsource jobs to the detriment of a struggling middle class in America (Fredericks, 2016). In addition, although at a much lower scale, AT&T recently faced a strike in San Diego, where 1,700 of its employees protested against the company’s monitoring of sales and customer care representatives, a common practice in the telecommunications industry that companies allegedly use to improve customer experience (Freeman, 2016). AT&T managed to reach a four-year agreement with the union shortly after the strike (Goovaerts, 2016), but Verizon’s internal crisis is ongoing and represents the largest in the US (Goldman & Smith, 2016). Whereas the picketers argue that the company is hiring low-wage employees and that it outsourced 5,000 jobs to the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic despite the fact that its profits are souring, Verizon’s leadership argues that its wireline business is in decline and that it lost 1.4 million customers (Goldman & Smith, 2016). In addition, the strikers complain that Verizon sends them to work miles away from their families, depending on business needs (Smith, 2011). Not surprisingly, the protests negatively impacted the company’s stock as shares dropped 5% by the end of May 2016, a month and a half after the protests had started (La Monica, 2016). The two strikes in general and Verizon’s in particular are especially importance because, as the results will show in the next paragraphs, the two companies focus on developing and maintaining an organizational culture of inclusion that would enable them to offer a unique customer experience. AT&T’s strike comprised only its employees in San Diego and stemmed from reasons that are considered standard practices in the telecommunications industry. Conversely, Verizon’s case becomes particularly important in the context of diversity engagement in the US because its employees complain of being compelled to work remotely and far away from their families, a practice that contradicts the usual corporate emphasis on the
implementation of policies that promote a work-life balance. Further, the claims, according to which the company plans to offshore some of its business to Latin America, raise concerns about its commitment to contribute to the development of a middle class in America, a social status to which many members of historically marginalized communities may aspire. From the perspective of a global diversity engagement, offshoring business operations contributes to the local economy through job creation, but raises questions about the low payments of the local employees and the profits that derive as a result of it. Despite the fact that the period of analysis for the present study preceded the time of the aforementioned strikes, the results show an emphasis on organizational culture that should be discussed in light of the protests. Specifically, the fact that Verizon is facing the largest strike in the US and has a history of similar crises signals a culture of distrust toward management that should be viewed in light of the company’s focus on sustaining a culture of inclusion.
