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By Shayda Naficy, otherwords.org

Water is at risk in the United States and around the world. Its quality and availability is in peril. Today, nearly one in eight people lack access to adequate supplies of safe drinking water. Globally, water-borne diseases kill more people than tuberculosis or malaria, and five times as many children die of diarrhea than of HIV/AIDS.

The causes are varied. Industrial pollution. Agricultural run-off. Climate change. Land overuse. Many well known corporations are contributing to these problems, including Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, Nestlé and Shell Oil. Unilever and Veolia, companies better known abroad, are responsible too.

These companies pollute our water with chemicals that make people sick and make it difficult or impossible for people around the world to access clean, safe water.

Yet these same corporations are rushing to position themselves as a part of the solution to a problem they helped create.

Just this summer, a Louisiana judge found that Dow Chemical was responsible for contaminating an aquifer with vinyl chloride, a cancer-causing chemical. Meanwhile, it’s touting a tightly moderated online dialogue about water sustainability called the “Future We Create” in an effort to emphasize its concerns about water.

Coca-Cola boasts about its initiatives to boost access to clean water and sanitation for a range of economically disadvantaged populations across the globe, even as it continues to bottle water in drought-prone areas of India and elsewhere.

These efforts are marketing ploys. The corporations behind them are responsible for immeasurable human suffering and environmental damage.

By appearing to act in good faith to remedy these impacts, corporations can purchase goodwill, temper negative publicity, and even stave off or roll back regulation.

The latter is precisely what the world’s leading water profiteers and polluters are currently attempting.

This summer, Reps. John Mica (R-FL) and Nick Rahall (D-WV), along with other U.S. lawmakers, apparently fell prey to corporate feel-good campaigns and did the bidding of a range of polluting corporations that underwrote their electoral campaigns. As a result, the House of Representatives passed a law that gives states the right to disregard federal clean water standards.

At the international level, a cadre of CEOs from the aforementioned corporations has started a public relations initiative within the United Nations called the CEO Water Mandate. The Mandate affords these corporations a platform to talk about their varied commitments to address the global water crisis, but it provides no real way for the UN, much less the average person, to verify whether corporations are honoring these commitments.

Sadly, the UN is increasingly allowing dubious, albeit positive-sounding, promises from the corporate world to substitute for more meaningful safeguards against corporate abuse. It’s failing to create real tools to hold corporations accountable for their actions. It turns out that, when confronted with such contradiction, the unease and uncertainty that policymakers feel isn’t so different from what the rest of the public feels.

We don’t owe corporations our goodwill simply because they made a mess and then took some small measure to clean it up. We aren’t obliged to give corporations carte blanche to damage our health, economy, and the environment so long as they “give something back.”

What’s at stake is the water we depend on for our health, well-being, and very existence. It’s time that the right to clean water becomes protected by law, from the halls of Congress to the UN. Public relations campaigns and votes bought with corporate dollars shouldn’t hoodwink us or our leaders into leaving that right to the whims of global water profiteers and polluters.

A new campaign aims to help save Latino children, who tend to die more often during car crashes. The Buckle Up For Life, or Abróchate a la Vida campaign is funded in part by Toyota and was created by medical trauma specialists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to help Latino families become more educated on vehicle safety. A press release notes:

The program is designed to educate Hispanic families on the importance of keeping their families safe while driving.

“We were seeing a disproportionate number of Hispanic children coming into the hospital with severe crash-related injuries and we knew we had to do something about it,” said Dr. Rebeccah L. Brown, Associate Director, Trauma Services at Cincinnati Children’s.

By Jason A. Lorenz, Esq., Executive Director of the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP).

As represented in the FCC docket, the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile has received substantive support from national Hispanic organizations including Hispanic Federation, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL); the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA); the US Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI), the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), LULAC, and ASPIRA, among many others[1].

14 leading organizations joined in writing the FCC in support of the merger, while highlighting, and asking the Commission to consider the Latino community’s particular interests in the transaction. HTTP also submitted its own letter to the FCC, which highlights the diverse range of Latino voices supporting the deal.

The national organizations, in completing a detailed analysis of this transaction, articulated several issues – including price and availability of service, commitment to digital literacy and adoption from a post merger AT&T, and careful consideration from the FCC in facilitating opportunities for Latino business participation in potential divestitures, as key importance to Latinos.

Many news stories have recently covered “large numbers of filings” in opposition to the merger, however, and notwithstanding those critical of the merger who took the time to constructively convey their concerns, a review of the docket shows a large portion of these comments are not substantive, and are merely generated by automated forms resulting from e-mail Acton Alerts pushed by “public interest groups.”

While all large mergers raise eyebrows, this transaction stands to increase, or create first-time access to high-speed mobile broadband technologies in some of the most underserved rural communities — and does so by creating jobs through investment in upgrading the combined network with $8 billion of investment over seven years. Those jobs are likely to be unionized — as AT&T is the only unionized workforce in the industry. T-Mobile not only does not have a path to developing next-generation, 4G/LTE technologies on its own, but its parent company, Deutsche Telecom has said publicly, it would no longer invest in T-Mobile. This could result in a slow failure of the company (T-Mobile has been slowly losing customers) or, just as destructive, a low-quality second-class network that does not evolve to make state of the art technology available to its customers.

The American telecommunications industry is among the most fiercely competitive, innovative business sectors in the world. While we all advocate for more and better service and continuing the trend of lower mobile prices, we should not let those who see the word “merger” as automatically anti-competitive or anti-consumer, scare us into thinking that AT&T would spend more than $39 billion to take us back to the 1980’s Zack Morris cell phone.

In a week where the PEW Center reports that Latinos are leading the rapidly growing group of Americans reporting use of the Internet to make phone calls — 27% of Latinos report using Internet call services — we are reminded that the facts and the history of innovation just do not bear out the scare-mongers message.

[1] The following Hispanic organizations filed comments in favor of the transaction: ASPIRA Association, Inc. (Jointly with: CNC – Cuban American National Council, Hispanic Federation, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, League of United Latin American Citizens, MANA- A Latina National Organization, National Conference of Puerto Rican Women, National Hispanic Council on Aging, National Hispanic Medical Association, National Puerto Rican Coalition, Ser Jobs for Progress National, Inc., US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, and the United States – Mexico Chamber of Commerce); Association of Washington State Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Cuban American National Council, Fresno Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Group of 56 Minority, Women, and Disabled Veteran Entrepreneurs, Hispanic 100, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Contra Costa County, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis, Hispanic Leadership Fund, Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Central Florida Chapter, Latin Business Association, Latino Action Network, Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association (LISTA), Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, National Council of La Raza, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, National Latina Business Women Association, San Joaquin County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Spanish American Merchants Association, Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, The Hispanic Institute, The Latino Coalition, and the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

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[Editor's Note: The following is a press release from the National Hispanic Media Coalition]

Today, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) and the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), filed a petition to deny AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A horizontal acquisition of this nature, between AT&T, the second largest mobile phone provider in the U.S., and T-Mobile, the fourth largest, would create a highly consolidated mobile telephone market. Consumers, especially itinerant consumers (as many Latino workers are), that rely on national providers to ensure that they can connect no matter their locale, would be forced to select from one of only three mobile phone providers.

“Less competition in the mobile phone marketplace would lead to higher prices, fewer choices and poorer customer service at a time when consumers can least afford it,” stated NHMC’s Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs, Jessica J. González. “This would disproportionately harm Latino consumers because Latinos, more than any other demographic group, rely on mobile phones for communication, democratic participation, civic engagement and economic empowerment.”

Mobile phones have become a necessity for many individuals and families, and with 25% of Latinos living below the poverty line, higher prices would be devastating. On average, Latinos pay $104 per month for mobile phone services, already significantly more than any other demographic group. And of the four major national carriers, Latinos pay the highest rates on AT&T, averaging bills of $120 per month, and the lowest on T-Mobile, averaging $102. Thus, it should be no surprise that approximately 21-25% of T-Mobile’s 34 million customers are Latino, compared to 12% of AT&T’s customers. If this acquisition were approved, T-Mobile customers would have fewer choices for pricing plans and devices, and would be subject to AT&T’s documented history of poor customer service.

González added, “in addition, this acquisition would lead to layoffs even as the U.S. is trying to rebuild its vulnerable workforce. NHMC and NiLP welcome the increased number of union jobs that AT&T claims this acquisition would create, however, those jobs should not come at the expense of layoffs and fewer overall employment opportunities in the telecommunications sector.” Unfortunately, countless Latinos and others stand to lose their jobs as a result of AT&T’s plans to embrace the so-called “synergies” that this acquisition would produce. In the past decade, both companies have hired large numbers of Latinos to staff and manage their retail stores and to provide bilingual customer service for billing and other issues. Now, AT&T is proposing to consolidate retail stores and billing systems, necessarily leading to layoffs and eliminating opportunities for new entrants.

Angelo Falcón, NiLP’s President, had this to say: “NiLP is honored to be a part of this effort by the National Hispanic Media Coalition to challenge the AT&T/T-Mobile merger because of our growing concern about the concentration of corporate power in American society and its negative consequences for the Latino community and all Americans. This merger is a threat to competition and the result will likely be higher prices, especially a problem for Latinos who are so dependent on wireless services and are one of the most economically vulnerable groups in this society. We believe that AT&T has been a good corporate citizen in its relations to the Latino community, but there are issues here that go beyond the importance of diversity alone.”

“AT&T is held in high regard amongst many Latino civil rights groups for various reasons, including its outreach to and generous philanthropic support of Latino-led and Latino-serving institutions, as well as its history of employing, promoting and retaining Latinos and other diverse individuals throughout its workforce,” stated NHMC’s President & CEO, Alex Nogales. Nogales added, “NHMC and NiLP acknowledge and appreciate AT&T’s efforts within the Latino community, however, they do not nearly compensate for long-term harms that consumers, and particularly Latino consumers, will feel as a result of the acquisition.”