By John Hughes - May 19, 2010
FedEx Corp. Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith is misleading the public on air-safety legislation and “bought his way” to be covered by a 1996 labor law that helped his company, a House committee chairman said.
U.S. Representative James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, rejected Smith’s characterization that a labor measure the chairman wrote is holding up aviation-safety legislation.
Smith is “peddling a false image” of the bill’s status, Oberstar told reporters today on a conference call after meeting relatives of victims in a Colgan Air crash who are pushing for action on the measure. “He ought to be telling the truth rather than misleading the public.”
FedEx, the second-largest U.S. package-shipping company, is fighting United Parcel Service Inc. and unions over Oberstar’s legislation that would treat FedEx workers on the ground the same as similar UPS employees in labor organizing. UPS is covered by a law that lets workers vote locally to join unions.
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2 comments:
United we stand.
I am one of the most optimistic workers in FedEx. But, I am beginning to wonder where we stand. I realize Fred Smith it trying to manipulate the U.S Congress with his threats of purchasing aircraft from Europe (France) instead of the United States. To purchase those aircraft from the French, where labor unions are that Nation’s norm; simply means that Mr. Smith only wants to sh-t on American labor. This wealthy segment of America hates the very foundation that helped build its fortunes.
This is sociopathic greed; you simply want reap the rewards and rather than extending some rewards to the American workers who are the foundation of your enterprise, you would rather give it to the French who more heavily unionized than any American company. I don’t understand this level of selfishness.
A market economy flourishes when goods and services are delivered; revenues are earned and a percentage of the profits are distributed amongst the labor force that helped create those revenues. Those dollars would be redistributed back into our economy in a price system set by supply and demand.
The West Virginia disaster a few months ago killed 29 miners and has been blamed on chronic safety and maintenance violations by the mine’s owners, which have been accused of calculating that it was more cost-effective to fight citations and even eventually pay fines than to immediately correct unsafe conditions.
Now we have that horrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will threaten the livelihood of Fisherman and many other industries in that region. These are high level corporate decisions where greed is the foundation which may eventually destroy our way of life if continued unchecked.
As FedEx workers our little piece of this pie is a union contract which will guarantee safe working conditions, job classifications, a grievance process, and a livable pension plan for our retirement.
It is time to get this ball rolling; the continued political, economic, and industrial news we receive every day is a constant remainder of our need to take immediate action. The time is now!
Anaheim hub... Need to be as strong as Orange hub. And go union we need your support.. P and D driver ......
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