AT&T, Rivals Spar Over Deal's Impact
Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Justice Department is ?ready and eager? to lay out its case against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. But AT&T and its business rivals are already going at it in the court of public opinion ? and they?re both using the politically potent issue of jobs to plead their case. The Communications Workers of America, which supports the deal, also jumped into the fray Tuesday. The labor union released its own analysis backing up AT&T?s job claims and attacking the Sprint study for ?sloppy research.? CWA reasons that T-Mobile, ?which is already in a downward spiral,? would end up losing jobs as it sputters out of business on its own, so the marriage of AT&T and T-Mobile would save more jobs, especially in light of AT&T?s job commitments.?In these types of mergers, this level of agreement is unprecedented, which shows that this merger is different from others,? said Ken Peres, a CWA economist. ?We think there should be benchmarks and penalties for all these conditions so that
