From the Wall Street Journal:
If you can’t beat 'em, have Congress hobble 'em. That’s the motto of some in corporate America, and Exhibit A might be United Parcel Service’s campaign to get Washington to impose its labor woes on rival Federal Express. This would be one more union bailout at the expense of business competition and economic efficiency.
House Transportation Chairman James Oberstar (D., Big Labor) last year slipped 230 words into a spending bill that would make it easier for the Teamsters to unionize FedEx. This ambush was included at the urging of UPS, which has been saddled with the Teamsters for decades and wants FedEx to feel its pain.
Since FedEx began its Express letter and package service in 1971, its overnight delivery has been regulated under the Railway Labor Act. Congress created that statute to discourage labor strikes and “avoid any interruption to commerce.” It viewed airlines and express-shipping companies as bedrocks of commerce and deliberately put them under the law. As FedEx delivers 85% of its parcels by air, many of them time-sensitive packages that enable a modern economy, it rightly belongs under the railway act.
This classification riles the Teamsters because the railway act requires unions to organize at a national, rather than local, level. FedEx employees have rejected every Teamster organization attempt. Of its 125,000 employees, about 4,500 belong to the Air Line Pilots Association. The rest are nonunion.
Meanwhile, UPS delivers 85% of its packages by trucks and is regulated under the more union-friendly National Labor Relations Act. Its operations are manned by 240,000 Teamsters, whose walkouts and strikes play havoc with its business model. In 1997 the Teamsters waged a 15-day strike at UPS estimated to have cost the economy $15 billion. UPS paid $6 billion in 2007 to gain some control over ballooning Teamst
All the Airlines like United, Delta, American, and Southwest are covered by the Railroad Labor Act.
From: ’ Convicted One"- “…Thoughts: I wonder which carrier actually generates more traffic for the railroads? I would have thought it was UPS …hands down…”
For rail borne traffic on railroads, I think your statement is probably right on track. Out here in South Central Kansas (BNSF T-con) practically every train ( in both directions0 that has TOFC cars, you can pretty well count on some UPS logo’d equipment on board.
The Fed Ex TOFC is present, but no where near regular in appearance, close to the week-ends and on saturdays you’ll see it, a few through the rest of the week ( usually FEDEX Freight div.) I do not currently know their business, but when I was working with them we shipped P-1 Class by Truck ( team drivers)from Calif (and western origins to be in Memphis for the Sundfay PM Sort). I’d guess that the late week day freight would be treated similarly shipped by rail to be sorted at West Coast Hubs for monday delivery.
__*Here is a link uyou might find of some interest : http://www.internationalist.org/teamsters.html*__
The reference is to the 1997 UPS Strike by the Teamsters Union and was known at FED EX as the great “BROWN OUT of '97”.
FTL: "…The union’s answer to the management ploy should be to use this strike to organize Federal Express and other non-union carriers! Everyone knows that there are organizing efforts underway at FedEx, and many workers there would flock to the union if there was an all-out effort to use the Teamsters’ muscle. During the New York City janitors’ strike last year, FedEx workers refused to cross picket lines and dropped their boxes on the sidewalk. Now is the time to send out flying squa
FDX’s overnight delivery service is regulated by the RLA for a simple reason: Its overnight delivery is by plane.
Pilot union associations negotiate and have their contracts as regulated by the RLA. It is an extremely cumbersome and the favor is weighted heavily in management’s favor under the RLA… the threat to strike these days is nearly nothing unless you’re a small carrier. Thanks to FedEx’s continued profitability margins as well as UPS (all pilots are governed by the RLA… it’s a throwback from the 1950’s when aviation was just coming to the mainstream and the only regulations they had to go on were the railroads), their pilots have not suffered the tremendous financial setbacks that most others have over the 2000-2010 decade.
Call me old fashioned, but I use the United States Postal Service for my shipping needs.