will not rest until i can elect 13 more like-minded, titanium- minded senators who will go with me and also repeal obamacare. i would go all across the country. i will raise money for them. i will do whatever it takes to make sure they are elected, because we must have a filibuster-proof senate, and that is the magic number that we need to get 30 more senators, so we get up to the 60-center mark. >> watch both speeches tomorrow night at 9:30 eastern and pacific time. we will start debate at 4:30 on the trade preferences bill. they will take a cloture vote at 5:30 on that bill which will likely become a measure to ratify a trade agreements with colombia, south america, and panama.

on tuesday, the house returns at 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. members will address a number of suspension bills. later in the week, they are expected to continue debate on a resolution that would extend funding for short-term federal government programs from october 1 to november 18, with votes on the measure possible wednesday. watch live coverage of the house at 2:00 p.m. eastern, here on c- span. >> this week on "the communicators, " differing views on the impact of the proposed merger of at&t and t-mobile on the wireless industry, on the jobs of communications workers, and on consumers. our guest are spread vice- president for government affairs, vonya mccann, and the president of the communications workers of america, larry cohen. >> this week on "the communicators," we have to guest

to talk about the proposed at&t/t-mobile merger. vonya mccann is our first guest. widespread file its own lawsuit against the merger, even after doj filed its suit? >> thank you. the departed justice -- the department of justice is very capable, and we have every confidence that they will prevail in court. but sprint has said from the very outset that this transaction would harm consumers and competition, and we filed suit to contribute our expertise and resources to prove that the transaction was illegal. >> also joining us this week is juliani grunwald of "the national journal."

>> if you take a look at the doj's complaint, they have a very strong case, and we have full confidence in its ability to prevail. >> you mentioned some of the concerns that you and other critics of the deal have raised about it, citing competition, also raising the prices, impact on innovation. what impact would it physically have on sprint, on your company? >> the main concern have raised, both with the department of justice and the federal communications commission, is that if the transaction were allowed to go forward, there would be two companies, at&t, t- mobile, and horizon. those two companies, who are former bell companies, would create a duopoly, which could use its influence to damage

spread's business. they control critical input over which sprint and other wireless companies -- not just sprint, but other independent wireless carriers. by raising the price of those services to us, they raise our cost and cost to consumers. that would damage our ability to compete against them. we raise this as a issue in litigation. >> you said for your ability to compete. as brent competitive now? with the two larger companies, at&t and verizon? >> spread goes out there every day in compete. -- sprint goes out there every day and compete. we are an independent an aggressive competitor. but there are certain things that prevent us from being able to be as competitive as we would

like to be. one of those things is verizon and att's control. we compete, we are able to succeed in the marketplace, and we have been doing so with increasing success over the last few years. >> about 55 million subscribers to sprint service. >> 52 million. >> is the marketplace liable for more than two or three companies? >> we believe so. we believe that the justice department believes it can support more than just two companies. in the beginning, there was a duopoly. when the fcc ruled out wireless services in the beginning, it

was a duopoly. congress and the fcc concluded that a duopoly did not serve the interest of consumers, that consumers were not given a choice. the prices remain high. all these business people -- only if business people could afford cellular service in the beginning. the congress and the sec decided to make war spectrum available and provide it to independent companies. that is how sprint was able to enter the business. after spreads and other companies began to enter the business, you begin to seek a greater variety of handsets, more innovative services and plans. before, there's just a plan. you pay basically the same thing, and a matter which carrier you got under the duopoly. nobody wants to go back to those days. >> t-mobile and at&t have said

they would have a tough time competing on their own if this merger does not go through. t-mobile would have a difficult time competing on their own if they don't merge with somebody. >> t-mobile is profitable today, if you look at their 10 k from 2010. they are enjoying healthy profit margins. i certainly believe that t- mobile is able to compete. so do other carriers. that is called competition. we are taking competitors from each other, but as sprint has been able to turn that around, certainly t-mobile can do the same. >> would it spread be interested in combining with t-mobile -- would sprint be interested in

combining with t-mobile? >> i don't have any comment on that kind of speculative future activity. >> do you think such a merger would have a better shot with the government'? >> i cannot tell you what would be in the mind of the regulators. >> i want to ask about the study whatsprint' commissioned on you consider to be job loss. one of the reasons communication workers of america is supportive of the merger is because they say it would increase jobs. sprint says that is not true. int sayingot just sprat that is not true. the claims are totally specie as.

the study is completed faulty. people look at the history of at&t and t-mobile of the last eight or nine years, t-mobile has been creating jobs while at&t has been eliminating jobs. the study proves that the basis for the claim is just wrong, and keep you look at past transactions and what each company has been doing over the last eight or nine years, you will see that at&t has been shedding jobs, while t-mobile has actually been adding them. if the merger work prove, we wouldanticipate that at&t continue its shedding of jobs. >> vonya mccann, in the lawsuit , one of the issues

you bring up is back hall. what is that, and why is that a factor? >> most people don't know that the only part of a wireless call that is actually wireless is from your handset to the tower. everything from the tower on to the delivery of the call is carried over wire line facilities. a portion of those facilities are called back halls. those services are provided by the local telephone companies which include at&t and verizon. they are the two largest wireline telephone companies in the united states, as well as the two largest wireless. their control over these backhaul facilities significantly affects the price of wireless service, because

they can increase our cost by saying he had to pay more for these services, and then we are not able to be as competitive as we would like with our services to consumers. >> what if the justice department were to impose conditions on the merger, saying it cannot raise the price on back call services? what if they were to impose those conditions? i know you have said before you don't think any conditions can satisfy this. >> we have not revised our thinking, and more importantly, i don't think the justice department has revised its thinking. the acting head of the antitrust division just recently said that the department does not file lawsuits itself. we are not looking for any conditions, and if you take justice at its work, and we

certainly do, they are not looking to impose any conditions. they are looking to block the transaction. >> if they were to reach a settlement with at&t on this, would something like a condition insuring access to backhaul at a reasonable rate, with that lessen the blow for you guys a little bit on this? >> in the antitrust world, what you need to do is try to replace the competition that the transaction would eliminate. just decreasing the price of backhaul for sprint and other independent wireless companies would not replace the competition, taking t-mobile out of the market and creating a duopoly.

it is the creation of a duopoly, to companies with 80% control of the market, it is that kind of duopoly that is going to harm consumers and harm competition. >> vonya mccann received her law degree from uc-berkeley and has worked at the sec, the state department, and was a partner with eric fox for a while. vonya mccann, what do you know about the judge who has this case? the case was assigned to her here in the d.c. district court. >> she is a very good judge. she is smart, very efficient, and we look forward to bringing our case in front of her. >> will be combined with the justice department's's? >> we found our department -- we expect and hope that the two cases will be tried together.

>> vonya mccann, does congress have role if this merger would go through? could congress prevent it? cracks the case is in litigation right now in the courts, and i think most lawmakers believe that once something -- particularly a law enforcement investigation -- that is what this is. just as the departed justice is right fully enforcing our nation's antitrust laws to protect consumers, both law might -- most lawmakers believe once you hit the stage of the process, it is for the courts to decide and let the judicial process take its course. >> would sprint be okay if three major companies existed? at&t, verizon, and sprint? a triopoly.

>> we obviously think a monopoly is the worst. duopoly is very close to it. i am not familiar with the term triopoly. we believe a strong no. 3 is good for consumers, good for competition, and good for the economy. >> you also include spectrum in your lawsuit, the issue of spectrum. how the spectrum figure in to your lawsuit against at&t/t- mobile merger? >> one of the reasons at&t says it bought to acquire t-mobile was because he needed the spectrum to provided improved services to its customers. we demonstrated at the fcc and we think compellingly at the justice department that at&t already has all the spectrum it needs to provide services to the

vast majority of americans. it does not need to merge with t-mobile to do that. they are paying $39 billion and sending that offshore, out of this country to acquire t- mobile, when their own documents reveal that they could have paid one-tenth of that amount to rule out bedewed to roll out services on existing spectrum services onout spectru existing spectrum. their own documents prove they don't need to acquire t-mobile. >> they have a varied -- have sprint.ry critical of sprea they say sprint has been hostile to union efforts. i want to get your comments on

the claim about the labor record pretax this transaction does not involve sprint. we are not seeking to acquire another company. our labor record is very good and i am very comfortable with it. we respect the law and the right of workers to choose. cwa is looking out for its own members, as you would expect it to do. not jobs as a whole, and if you look at the jobs study, it shows that the number of workers that could lose their jobs if this transaction reprove is far greater than any benefit that cwa might receive. >> is that jobs study available on your website? >> i believe is, but if it is not, we will make it available. >> on our website is the sprint

lawsuit against the merger, if you want to read that again, c- span.org/communicators. vonya mccann, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> she and other critics of this merger have said they have never seen a murder that does not result in job losses for workers. my question for you as the head of union, why are you supporting this deal? >> first of all, as you may have talked about with her, i am not sure, at&t committed that all call center work and the level of employment at all the call centers of both companies would continue post merger. this is a huge commitment. brent, for example, contracts out most of it should reject sprint contracts out most of its call center work offshore.

between t-mobile, which has been , and some at&t work which is of short, in addition they would cut in up offshore work to bring 5000 net jobs back to u.s. call centers. in this industry, that is huge. the trend is to contract out engineering work, plant workers. there are very few stores that are company owned relative to the other companies. for starters, we have 5000 net jobs, and we stopped the contrasting out and offshore in of the t-mobile service work. >> what proportion of workers

-- about half at both companies are call center workers. >> how would this merger benefit consumers? wooden competition be lessened? >> -- wouldn't competition be less in question or >> we support this merger with conditions. in terms of consumers, number one is to build out to rural america, which the president talked about in the state of the union. the main way you are going to get high-speed internet, which is 10 mb downstream or more, what we would call high speed. right now, rural america is lucky to get 1 megabyte. the only way you are going to get it is wireless. other countries are billing out faster than we are.

at&t was prepared as a condition to say we will reach -- it would be up to fcc -- 98% of rural households by 2014 or 2015. the people live in rural america are consumers, not just those who live on wall street and have many choices. we talked about the broadband maps in the past. to complete this service in a state like west virginia, that entire state has almost nothing in terms of high-speed internet. verizon dumped all of its wire lines to a company called frontier. there is no real high-speed internet in west virginia. the idea that at&t would have to

make commitments like that as a condition of the merger is absolutely critical for consumers. price issues, that is a job for the fcc. on the wireline side when at&t merged with bellsouth, there was a commitment in terms of price and terms of wireline build out in the rural southeast united states. the sec part of the deal is to slap conditions on what actually happens to consumers, as opposed to the antitrust issues. >> let's go back and clarify what the promises that at&t has made to cwa regarding jobs. are those in writing? >> these are written commitments they have made that on the call

center side, the biggest single place in terms of front-line jobs across america, these are the big locations. there is a t-mobile center in rural maine with 500 jobs. those people are fighting for their jobs right now. the workers were outside yesterday's. at&t is saying no jobs cut in any of the centers, none. stop the of shoring. in addition, they will bring back 5000 by cutting. they will probably cut more than 5000 jobs in asia but there will be a net gain of 5000 jobs in its call centers in the u.s. that is a huge shift in terms of what is happening in the industry. they are competing by cutting costs. this is a huge reason why the u.s. economy is in the toilet.

big companies compete by cutting costs, not by raising revenues. they cut workers, they cut jobs, they eliminate health care and pensions. then we wonder why people don't buy anything. they are not buying anything because they are either not working or they are seeing their standard of living fall, so they are buying less. that is a benefit of this merger from the point of view of working americans as well as the bill dealt for rural america. >> conditions on mergers usually only last for a few years. what would you expect as far as these written assurances? >> i think that is key. one of the keys in general for my point of view is that we need to do a check against --check- ins on mergers, not just this one, but all mergers.

what has happened since verizon spun off their wireline in vermont and new hampshire and maine to a fair point and they went bankrupt? you are absolutely right, they should be checked on regular. i cannot agree more. otherwise, what is the point of doing regulation? >> how long do you want these conditions to be enforced? five years, 10 years? >> how is the customer service were going to be done, in terms of jobs, and get those commitments in terms of the percentage of the work on an ongoing basis. as cwat have an ability

to do that. it is question of what they ask for as conditions for the merger to be approved. >> larry cohen of communication workers of america, if this merger does not go through, if the part of justice prevails, what happens to t-mobile? >> that is really critical question. sprint was in the process of their own deal with t-mobile. a piece of this is sort of the jilted suitor. the synergies are much greater. sprint has four other incompatible technologies they are trying to deal with. this would be the fifth one. the at&t deal with a better deal, and it interrupted that deal. the way the justice department has written radio and press releases, they talked about keeping four cos.

that is not going to happen. i think everybody knows that t- mobile as it exists, the chairman at a congressional hearing said we don't have the next $10 billion for the fourth generation build out. we are multinational company based in germany. our first priority is to repatriate the capital and to fiber build out in germany. t-mobile is 31% owned by the german government's. as it should be, that is where their priorities are. in our view, the justice department is taking an incredibly narrow view. this is not a static industry. the value goes to zero if you do not go to the next technology. there are some customers that would prepay just for boys, but

if you don't go to 4g and have genuine high-speed wireless our people can download data are relatively quickly, you may as well not have a company. they cannot mandate that kind deutschetment from borgi telecom. how do you put a green light up to invest here and then say you cannot sell? that is essentially what they are doing. if the goal is to keep four companies, what are they supposed to do and they don't want to invest the next $10 billion here? >> communication workers of america has written quite a bit on the website about this proposed merger and their support of it. >> on the day the justice

department filed its lawsuit trying to block the deal, was about the same day that at&t announced a 5000 job commitment, you said the lawsuit was simply wrong. can you explain what justice got wrong in their lawsuit? >> some of the key points are the ones you already raised. it is the difference of the dynamic versus the static industry. in addition to what we talked about in terms of 4g been the norm, you have the over the top services. microsoft spent $8 billion to buy skype. they grabbed the poor and traffic -- foreign traffic. people download the skype app, which is now owned by