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OPINION: NLRA Could Do What Rain, Sleet and Snow Can’t?
FedEx Express drivers are currently covered under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), the labor law intended for planes and trains, not automobiles.
On the other hand, every other express delivery driver in the country is covered under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). And a provision in the House version of the pending FAA reauthorization bill would right this inequity in the law and close the FedEx loophole.
Now, if you believe FedEx Express’s propaganda campaign (but why would you?), the company will go out of business and usher in the end of the world as we know it should they be forced to operate under the NLRA just like every other express delivery company in the country. Indeed, consider this Armageddon-like scenario painted by the Washington Times in an editorial a few weeks ago about the provision which would eliminate the FedEx Loophole:
“The result could be that a dozen workers in just one key city could, by striking, ground FedEx Express to a virtual halt nationwide. This wouldn’t merely mean a delay in the delivery of birthday presents and the like. Approximately 80 percent of all U.S. mail – all those documents and packages entrusted to the regular postal service – that is carried by air is flown by FedEx Express.”
So a change in labor law which would place FedEx Express on a level playing field with all of its competitors would shut down 80 percent of the nation’s mail delivery? Including Nevada? Really?
Not according to the Postal Service.
USPS spokesman Jerry McKiernan told me today that “the Postal Service has never failed to process the mail in 235 years,” and that while “FedEx is important to our operation, we’d find a way” to deliver the mail even if the company ran into labor problems.
A field-leveling change in the nation’s labor law might – might – adversely affect FedEx Express sometime in the future; however, there’s no evidence whatsoever that such a change would ever do what rain, sleet and snow have failed to do: Shut down home mail delivery – in Nevada, or anywhere else.
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