House panel opens door for Teamsters to organize FedEx workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/41525

House panel opens door for Teamsters to organize FedEx workers
Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 16:16.

* By BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN, Scripps Howard News Service
* washington

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week made it easier for unions like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to organize FedEx employees.

By changing the jurisdiction of how some employees can be organized -- from national to local bargaining units -- the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act that now goes to the House floor takes away provisions that made it difficult for FedEx drivers to join local unions.

The same language passed the House in 2007 but was never taken up by the Senate. Some industry observers say the provision stands a better chance of surviving with Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House.

Fed Ex spokesman Maury Lane said the company is "deeply disappointed" that the committee "voted to approve anti-competitive legislation that unfairly benefits one company -- the much larger (United Parcel Service). We strongly urge the House to reject this legislation before the inherent economic damage threatened by (Thursday's) vote becomes a reality."

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., a member of the committee from Memphis, FedEx's world headquarters, objected to the language, saying that "to subject the number one commercial carrier in this country to a strike which the Railway Labor Act is designed to protect against" would be a mistake.

Cohen did not offer an amendment stripping the bill of the labor language as has been expected. Teamsters president James P. Hoffa circulated a letter earlier in the week seeking to kill any provision Cohen might introduce, saying the bill as written "corrects an injustice in the current law."

FULL story at link.