The CWA and consumer and ethnic groups urged the General Services...

The CWA and consumer and ethnic groups urged the General Services Administration (GSA) Fri. to take the lead at the federal level and bar MCI/WorldCom from doing business with the federal govt. The organizations, including the CWA, Gray Panthers, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, National Black Chamber of Commerce, National Consumer League and the National Native American Chamber of Commerce, wrote to GSA Administrator Stephen Perry saying: “We have learned that MCI/WorldCom’s overstatement of earnings has risen from $8 [billion] to $11 billion, that the scandal has wiped out over $4 billion in pension fund value across the country and that MCI/WorldCom paid federal taxes on their overstated earnings to perpetuate its fraudulent activity-receiving to date over $300 million in tax refunds.” The groups said recent actions by state attorneys gen. in Ala., Ia., Okla. and W.Va. were a precursor to their filing, and convictions in state court automatically would bar MCI/WorldCom from holding federal contracts. The letter urged the GSA to investigate the Dept. of Defense contract with the company to build a mobile telephone network in Iraq to “better understand what type of vetting process was undertaken to award this contract, and why MCI/WorldCom was selected as the provider of mobile telephone service in Baghdad when they do not provide the service at all in the United States?” CWA Pres. Morton Bahr said “we risk allowing the current crisis of corporate confidence to become a crisis of government confidence” if the govt. continues to negotiate new contracts with MCI/WorldCom. He said the debarment would “not bring about the loss of additional jobs” in the telecom industry, but “may in fact save jobs.” In a separate letter to Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Sen. Collins (R-Me.), Bahr supported her decision to investigate the awarding of contracts to MCI/WorldCom as “not in the public interest.” He said there were several other companies, “all of whom acted lawfully, that can provide these services.”