Old 07-20-2009, 06:40 PM
  #7  
BOYCAPTAIN
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and don't forget UPS has tried numerous times to get under the RLA!

"In 1936, airlines were brought under the RLA. FedEx, which began as an air freight company and created the modern express business, is precisely the sort of integrated system for which the RLA was written. This matters: 53 percent of all U.S. exports by value travel by air, and virtually all priority and express U.S. mail is carried by FedEx.
In 1981, UPS began air services, and in the 1990s it tried, legislatively and judicially, to be put under the RLA. In 1993 UPS said all of its operations, “including ground operations,” are properly subject to the RLA “because the ground operations are part of the air service.” FedEx supported UPS’s efforts, even though the vast majority of UPS parcels never go on an airplane, whereas FedEx’s trucking operations exist to feed its air fleet and distribute what it carries.
FedEx characterizes itself as the “world’s most effective airline” and UPS as “a 100-year-old trucking company.” FedEx, Smith insists, is not anti-union; its pilots are unionized. He says that the pay and benefits for its drivers are, on average, higher than those of UPS drivers and that new FedEx drivers must wait only three months to be eligible for benefits whereas UPS drivers must wait a year. Nevertheless, today’s Democratic majority in Congress, with UPS now aligned with the Teamsters, wants to put FedEx’s ground pickup and delivery operations under the NLRA, thereby making FedEx’s entire integrated system susceptible to disruption by local disputes."
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