FedEx is expected to launch a multimillion-dollar lobbying offensive as early as Tuesday to thwart legislation that would put the Memphis, Tenn.-based package delivery company under the same labor laws as its main competitor, United Parcel Service Inc.
The legislation would make it far easier for some 100,000 FedEx
Express drivers and certain other employees to unionize.
“There’s a giant cost for the passage of this legislation that the American people shouldn’t have to pay,” FedEx spokesman Maury Lane said. “We are going to do everything we can so people understand what kind of legislative bailout this is and why it is so bad for consumers.”
“We are going to ask Congress to stop it in its tracks,” he added.
FedEx said the legislation, if passed, could lead to major traffic disruptions and reduce the reliability of its shipments.
UPS, whose employees are unionized, said the bill would simply level the playing field between the two companies.
The lobbying effort will target both the Washington market and outside-the-Beltway audiences.
“We are going to use every media means to talk about this for as long, for as loud and as simply as we can,” Lane said.
He declined to give any more details on FedEx’s lobbying strategy except that it would be “dynamic.”
The company’s public affairs campaign is the latest move in the decades-long pitched fight between the two companies over FedEx’s work force, which is regulated by the Railway Labor Act. FedEx has always been regulated under the RLA because it began as an airline company.
UPS began as a trucking company, so it is governed by the National Labor Relations Act.
FedEx, which transports most of its packages via aircraft, is less than half the size of UPS, with annual revenues, respectively, of $22.7 billion and $49.7 billion.
An amendment in the House version of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that passed late last month would put FedEx’s work force under the NLRA, which would make it easier for its employees to unionize.
Under the RLA, FedEx’s employees require national elections in order to unionize.
The NLRA allows single-location based union organizing.
FedEx isn’t taking any chances that a
Democratic-controlled Senate will pass the provision.
CEO Fred Smith recently upped the ante when he threatened in Congressional testimony to cancel a $10 billion contract for Boeing 777 planes if FedEx Express workers were to be put under the National Labor Relations Act.
UPS said it will continue lobbying the provision as it has in the past.
“We continue to educate the Members of Congress and officials looking at this issue on the merits of the issue,” UPS spokesman Malcolm Berkley said.
“Employees performing the same jobs should be covered under the same labor law,” Berkley added.
FedEx spent nearly twice as much on federal lobbying as UPS during the first quarter: $2.37 million to UPS’ $1.32 million.
Both companies have a large retinue of lobbyists.
FedEx has nine outside lobbying firms on retainer, including Breaux Lott Leadership Group, Downey McGrath Group Inc., Mattoon & Associates, Parven Pomper Strategies Inc., and Van Scoyoc Associates Inc., according to Senate lobbying disclosure reports.
UPS has 11 hired guns, including DC Navigators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Raffaniello & Associates and Holland & Knight, according to Senate lobbying disclosure reports.
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
Roll Call has launched a new feature, Hill Navigator, to advise congressional staffers and would-be staffers on how to manage workplace issues on Capitol Hill. Please send us your questions — anything from office etiquette, to handling awkward moments, to what happens when the work life gets too personal. Submissions will be treated anonymously.
