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Home » Hoffa seeks level "playing field" between FedEx, UPS
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Hoffa seeks level "playing field" between FedEx, UPS

February 17, 2010
Mark B. Solomon
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Teamsters Union President James Hoffa yesterday called on Congress to force FedEx Corp.'s air express workers to operate under the same labor law that governs its arch-rival UPS Inc., and vowed to "organize 100,000 workers at FedEx" once that happens.

Speaking at a conference of the union's brewery division in Washington, Hoffa said, "There is one law for FedEx and another law for UPS. We need to level the playing field and when we do that, we're going to organize 100,000 workers at FedEx."

Currently, workers at FedEx Express's air express unit are governed by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), a 1926 law that covers workers in the airline and railroad industries. All FedEx Express employees are covered under the RLA whether they're air-based workers like pilots, or workers who aren't directly involved in aircraft operations and maintenance, such as loaders and delivery drivers.

By contrast, UPS workers, which are heavily represented by the Teamsters, are covered under a different statute known as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which governs workers in the trucking and other industries. UPS has long argued that FedEx Express is the only company in U.S. transportation whose drivers, sorters, and loaders are covered by a labor law designed for airline workers instead of ground-service employees.

There is more at stake than semantics. The NLRA, which permits workers to be organized at a local, terminal-by-terminal level, is considered a much easier path to unionization than the RLA, which requires that workers at a company be organized as a single unit. Other than its pilots, FedEx has been largely non-union since its founding in 1972, and it wants to remain that way. The Teamsters, meanwhile, would covet a foothold in the FedEx Express operation.

Last year, Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) was able to include language in legislation that passed the House of Representatives that would have permitted the RLA classification for only those express carrier employees who are pilots and airplane mechanics, and perform the type of work governed under that law. He said the provision would "remove the disparity in current law" between the express operations of FedEx and UPS. The provision was never included in companion legislation in the Senate, however.

Transportation Air Regulation/Government
KEYWORDS FedEx UPS
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Marksolomon
Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.

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