WASHINGTON-In an exclusive interview provided to RCR, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition plans to announce aggressive opposition against pending telecom mega-mergers at the Federal Communications Commission’s Dec. 14 meeting if negotiations with company executives on the AT&T Corp.-Tele-Communications Inc.; SBC Communications Inc.-Ameritech Corp.; and Bell Atlantic-GTE Corp. mergers fail to win concessions for minority recruitment in hiring and contracting.
“We are at the table with merger giants,” Jackson told RCR.
Plans call for next Monday’s en banc meetings to scrutinize all three pending mergers.
Jackson’s head negotiator is Thomas Hart, a prominent African American communications lawyer and a board member of the Telecommunications Development Fund.
Jackson was highly critical of the merger between long-distance titan MCI Communications Corp. and Worldcom Inc. and is challenging the deal in court.
It is unclear what impact any opposition to the multibillion-dollar telecom mergers by Rainbow/PUSH will have.
Civil-rights activists have called on blacks to boycott wireless and other telecom firms that they believe have not actively reached out to minorities in employment and subcontracting.
Jackson’s outspoken position on telecom diversity has been directed not only at major corporations but also at the two major political parties, which receive massive donations from telecom carriers and manufacturers.
In doing so, Jackson has been able to attract much media attention with attacks against telecom mergers at a time when his political currency is down from where it was a few short years ago.
As such, Jackson, who announced at a National Press Club speech Friday that he would make a decision after Christmas whether to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, could be setting the stage to make telecom diversity a theme of any campaign.
While Jackson would have little chance against well-heeled GOP and Democratic political machines, such a move-owing to his large African American following-could help him leverage an influential slot in government if the Democrats win the White House again in 2000.
Kennard and diversity
Perhaps a bigger question is how the diversity issue is playing for FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, already under siege by the GOP-led Congress over telecom act implementation.
Kennard, the first African American to run the FCC, is seeking to foster telecom diversity in wireless and other communications sectors in the face of court curbs on federal affirmative action and minority hiring. Moreover, the GOP-led Congress has been opposed to racial and gender quotas. More recently, though, Republicans have started to rethink that stance.
Kennard is working with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), ranking minority member of the House Ways Committee, to revive minority tax credits that Republicans repealed in 1995 after winning the majority in Congress.
The legislative proposal being crafted by Kennard could include tax incentives to those that sell wireless properties to small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities.
“It is one thing to witness and experience the effects of discrimination and inequality in the communications industry. As I talk with a wide spectrum of the communications industry, I cannot help but notice the lack of ethnic and gender diversity in the upper ranks,” said Kennard, in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Black Media Coalition last Wednesday.
Studies ahead
Among other things, Kennard said the FCC will launch a series of studies to document racial and gender discrimination in the telecommunications industry. Such data is crucial to crafting progressive telecom diversity policies that can withstand strict scrutiny of the courts.
For sure, Kennard made early commitments to the Congressional Black Caucus to be an activist on telecom diversity in return for its agreement not to oppose his nomination.
The caucus backed Ralph Everett, an African American who advised Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) before entering the private sector.
Ari Fitzgerald, Kennard’s wireless adviser, said the FCC chairman’s devotion to telecom diversity is heartfelt and not driven by political pressure.
“This is very important to the chairman. There are some issues that rise above politics and telecom diversity is one of them,” said Fitzgerald.
