Supporttalkingunion.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/a-labor-day-reminder-of-credo%E2%80%99s-own-credibility-gap/
CREDO markets itself as the cellular company with a conscience. Sign up today, say CREDO ads in publications like The Nation, so you can “support the values you believe in.” Every call you make generates a small part of the millions of dollars the company gives to Wellstone Action, Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Greenpeace. CREDO is “more than a network,” it’s “a movement.”
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And this is where CREDO comes in. It has developed a sophisticated “Mobile Action” network of customers who want to use their cell phones for social change. CREDO, along with the National Resources Defense Council, is rallying them against the other major corporate sponsor of the event, Verizon Wireless (VZW). In e-mail messages and ads, network members are being exhorted to contact VZW president and CEO Lowell McAdam and demand that he “issue a public apology and immediately withdraw all support from this extremist, anti-environmental rally.”
Like Massey Energy, Verizon Wireless has been an industry leader in anti-unionism (only 50 out of VZW’s 50,000 workers are organized and management has been repeatedly cited for its unfair labor practices). But there’s no small irony in CREDO “calling out” Verizon Wireless. CREDO itself is also completely non-union! And not only does it knock, with good reason, VZW, it also takes regular aim at AT&T Mobility, the one wireless company that is unionized.
CREDO got its start as Working Assets, reselling long distance service by the notoriously anti-union Sprint. Now it’s doing the same thing with wireless, marketing itself as a bankroller of every kind of rights movement, except the workers’ rights one. Meanwhile, it tries to get progressive customers to switch, not just from VZW (a move long recommended by labor) but from AT&T as well, where more than 35,000 technicians, customer service reps, and retail store personnel belong to the Communications Workers of America.
Edited out my gratuitous schtuff