Rep Oberstar(D-MN) and his UPS Brownshirts out to Gut Federal Express
June 10th, 2009 | 
Author: Here’s another example of Democrats paying off the unions for their huge bribes campaign donations. The example of Democrats trying to put another corporation out of business in favor of another corporation which is unionized. Rep. James Oberstar is doing just this through a bill in congress.
Got it yet? Well, good – because if you do, there’s a question I’d like to ask you: Why in god’s name would you even consider passing a pay-to-play bill sponsored by a crook named Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-MN) that would gut the FedEx air delivery system by treating its fleet of airplanes like they were a bunch of trucks?
Could it be because each of you – like the greedy, grasping James Oberstar – is up to your ears in political pay-offs (sorry, make that “campaign contributionsâ€?) from FedEx’s main competitor, United Parcel Service? And because you’re also on the political payroll of the bare-knuckled bosses over at the Teamsters Union — which has been trying unsuccessfully for years to unionize FedEx?
Please, don’t deny it – that would only add insult to injury. According to Bloomberg news, UPS has “given more money to federal lawmakers than any other company over two decades.” And Teamster Union bosses have made a habit of handing Democrats tens of millions of dollars in hard and soft contributions in election after election for decades on end.
Let’s face it, you know exactly what Oberstar did – and why he did it. Carrying water for UPS and the Teamsters, he sneaked 230 words into the voluminous (I know that’s a long word: it means “big�) FAA Reauthorization Act that would gut FedEx. His 230-word poison pill would remove FedEx from the Railway Labor Act, under which it has operated since the day it was founded, and suddenly stick it under a law (the National Labor Relations Act) never intended for the type of air transportation FedEx uses to deliver 85 percent of its packages.
And – more importantly to you, James Oberstar, and your paymasters at United Parcel Service and the Teamsters Union – it would force FedEx to unionize and end its competition with UPS (which, not so coincidentally, delivers 85 percent of its packages by truck and does rightly fall under the NLRA).
In short, you have become little more than Mr. Brown’s Brown Shirts. And that is nothing less than shameful.
I have nothing against UPS, and have a family member who’s a driver for UPS but this is from the playbook of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. But then Oberstar is just following Obama’s direction of payback to the unions and deciding who wins and who loses. Smacks of the heavy handed tactics of Hitler’s Nazi’s.
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Hello,
Though I clearly have issues with how UPS treats its hourly retirees, I must take exception to your statement as follows;
“And – more importantly to you, James Oberstar, and your paymasters at United Parcel Service and the Teamsters Union – it would force FedEx to unionize and end its competition with UPS (which, not so coincidentally, delivers 85 percent of its packages by truck and does rightly fall under the NLRA”
Just what percetage of FedEx deliveries are made by truck, as alluded to by the above statement? I don’t know where you got your stats, but 100% of UPS deliveries are made by vehicles licensed as commercial vehicles (trucks) not airplanes or Railroad Cars, the same as Fed EX.
Both should be governed under NLRA regulations. While I’m at it the USPS (United States Postal Service) delivers by truck and mail men/women and are unfairly subsidizing their package delivery system by 1st class mail.
Where is the level playing field here? One subsidized by the US Government, The other that started out operating airplanes then evolved into Fed Ex Package Delivery, and then Fed Ex Freight?
Fact is, i can sympathize with the FED EX Truck Drivers who are classified as Contractors, not employees with the exception of California whos Fed EX Contractors recently won a lawsuit against FED EX arguing just that. Meanwhile across the country Fed Ex Drivers Contractual wages are being kept artificially low and are barely making the sustenance they need to maintain a decent living.
Ironically everyone in the media and business argue that unions make businesses non-competitive, and put them out of business. If so, how can it be explained that UPS has had Teamster Union employees since 1950, and still be the number 1 package delivery multi-national company in the world. It proves to me that UPS is the better run Company, with the Best Employees.
Just my acute observation after 36-1/2 years a Teamster.
Douglas Page Chapman Sr
[edited out personal information and website link]
36-1/2 years member in good standing IBT Locals 705 & 710. Over 55 years experience UPS/BROWN, 30 years an employee, 18+ years when Dad was an employee, and retired Teamster 13 + years.
I also know that UPS has stood up to union tactics which are the same tactics used to cripple the auto industry. Unfortunately auto management thought their day in hell would never come to pay the paymaster. It’s here now. I’ve also witnessed some of the thug tactics used by the Teamsters in Minnesota. I find nothing redeeming with unions today sir, rather than preserve a company and thus those employee jobs they’d rather hold out for ridiculous work requirements. Public unions have bankrupted the US education system along with cities and counties and states. Using legislative tactics to eliminate competition is just another thug tactic which is payback by the Democrats for all the union campaign donations.
Amen, Toni! Mr. Chapman spits out the UPS “party line” script but he misses crucial points. UPS would LOVE to get rid of the Teamsters – in fact, why doesn’t UPS request classification under the RLA like Fedex is? That would eliminate the so-called UPS “disadvantage”, wouldn’t it? The reason is that the Teamsters would NEVER allow this to happen and UPS knows it.
If unions are so wonderful, why is it that their membership rolls have been in a steady, relentless decline for over 30 years? It is funny how union leadership never can answer that. Also, UPS had to cough up $6 billion to wrest control from the Central States Pension Plan, the plan that Teamster leadership stole from, mismanaged, and spent into insolvency. The Teamsters don’t like to talk about that either.
This public singing of “kumbaya” by UPS and the Teamsters is hilarious. UPS has fought the union for years, and they are stuck with a labor cost disadvantage that they would now like to foist on FEDEX. Ridiculous! The Teamsters have been unsuccessfully trying to unionize on a national level at FEDEX for 15 years. The employees don’t WANT a union, because they work for a company that for 12 consecutive years has been recognized as one of America’s best places to work – you never find UPS in this category.
Unionization is a sickness, and UPS wants to infect FEDEX with this same disease.
And finally, Mr. Chapman, if UPS is such a wonderfully run company, why is it that since UPS went public 10 years ago, its shareholders have seen a cumulative negative 22% return vs a positive 35% return for the shareholders of FEDEX?
[...] There were quite a few members of a number of different unions (machinists, postal workers, nurses) attending the event, but I never saw a larger group than seven people being together wearing union shirts. I didn’t see one SEIU garment. The Teamsters parked a semi across the street from Target Center, but kept to themselves. They had coffee and donuts, but I’m not exactly sure who they were for. I had a brief, civil conversation with a Teamster leader about the Teamster’s plans for the kneecapping unionization of FedEx. [...]