A heated battle is raging in Congress between major shipping companies United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corporation and the rights of literally tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of employees hang in the balance.

You see, UPS is regulated under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and is heavily unionized, as 240,000 of its total 425,000 employees are required to accept union bosses’ monopoly bargaining "representation."  Meanwhile, FedEx is under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) — which also gives union bosses monopoly bargaining privileges, but only if an absolute majority of workers in a given bargaining unit vote to accept union bosses as their monopoly bargaining agent — and so only 4,700 of 290,000 FedEx employees have been unionized. 

So now UPS is backing legislation in Congress that would switch FedEx employees to the jurisdiction of the NLRA, making it easier for union bosses to corral FedEx’s employees into union ranks and force them to pay union dues just to keep their jobs.

ReasonTV has just released a video — parodying UPS’s famous "Whiteboard" commercials — detailing the UPS/FedEx dispute:

Unfortunately, FedEx employees’ workplace freedoms are not only in jeopardy by Congressional action, but also by federal bureaucratic fiat.

Big Labor is pushing for the National Mediation Board (NMB) — a government agency charged under the RLA with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries — to make dramatic changes to its enforcement of the RLA, greasing the skids for union organizers to force tens of thousands of non-union railway and airline industry workers into union membership.

Big labor partisans from over 30 unions, led by AFL-CIO, are pushing to change the threshold union organizers need to impose unions on workers in the railway and airline industries to just a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.

What seems like a small procedural change is in reality a major game changer, as it makes it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine, particularly since these campaigns must be run across an entire, often-nationwide bargaining unit.  Also, independent-minded FedEx employees would either have to take affirmative action to oppose union "representation" or otherwise potentially allow far less than a majority of their colleagues impose an unwanted union on them.

Unfortunately, regardless of how individual workers lose their rights — through actions of Congress or through executive branch machinations — Big Labor and Big Government are likely to be the only winners in the UPS-FedEx war.

Late last week, notoriously corrupt Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 brass sent a clear message to those who object and attempt to expose their shady underbellies.  When California state employee and part-time reporter Ken Hamidi, a vocal critic of SEIU boss corruption, arrived at a SEIU Local 1000 meeting as in preparation for a cable access show exposing the local’s misconduct, SEIU union thugs assaulted him:

Hamidi says he came to the hall to expose how he says SEIU union leaders are spending tens of thousands of dollars on a political race, he claims, they have no right to do.  After he and a photographer walked in to the meeting, it didn’t take long for Hamidi to be right out the door and on his way to the hospital.

After Hamidi entered the meeting, SEIU union bosses ordered union militants to "beat the hell out of him." Three or four union thugs then held Hamidi down and beat him until he was "covered in blood."  SEIU union toughs then reportedly warned Hamidi that if he ever showed up again, they would probably kill him.

Hamidi was treated at the hospital for lacerations to his head and face and the district attorney is investigating the incident.

Sadly, if workers in California were protected by a Right to Work law, this incident may have been adverted.  Right to Work laws promote accountability of union officials to rank and file workers, thereby reducing union boss corruption.  If SEIU Local 1000 officials were obligated to be accountable to their members, it would have been much less likely Mr. Hamidi would have reason to investigate them and their questionable political schemes.

Last August, a health care protester was assaulted by union thugs for daring to voice his opinions at a political rally. Now Kenneth Gladney is stepping forward with his own account of what happened:

 

He [the union protester] shouted at me, “What kind of nigger are you?!” Then, he grabbed my board, so I quickly grabbed it back, then the man punched me in the face and charged at me . I put my hands up to block the second blow from the large man, when two other people from that group grabbed me and threw me to the ground and started punching and kicking me. I was kicked in the head and in the back, legs and buttocks. Then a white woman ran up to me while I was on the ground and began kicking me in my head as well.

Big Labor activism is frequently characterized by outbreaks of physical violence. Richard Trumka, the newly-installed head of the AFL-CIO who has condoned bloody violence, has made a career out of bullying and aggressive tactics. The powerful Service Employees International Union is also no stranger to physical coercion.

But why are union operatives so eager to stifle dissent over health care reform? Simple: they know that a massive expansion of Big Labor special privileges is at stake. A few weeks ago, Foundation President Mark Mix took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal to explain why union bosses are so invested in the health care debate. 

After only a few months in office, the Obama Administration issued a controversial executive order that encourages federal agencies to use discriminatory Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) when allocating lucrative government contracts. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, PLAs give unionized companies preferential access to government work, which allows federal agencies to pressure unwilling employers to turn their workers over to union bosses. Fortunately, the first federal PLA issued under this executive order has just been defeated in New Hampshire:

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today announced that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has canceled its solicitation for bids to construct a new Job Corps Center in Manchester, N.H. under a government-mandated project labor agreement (PLA). The cancellation came in response to a protest filed with the Government Accountability Office Office (GAO) by ABC member North Branch Construction . . .

As the Associated Builders and Contractors’ release points out, PLAs cut nonunion companies out of the bidding process, making federal projects more susceptible to wasteful union work rules and massive cost overruns. The Foundation has filed public comments opposing the use of PLAs with the Department of Labor. Although the DoL’s response has been marked by shady union boss maneuvering, we hope the Administration will take note and rescind its discriminatory executive order. (Of course, we won’t be holding our breath given how close the administration is to Big Labor).

For more information, here’s a CNN segment on PLAs that includes an interview with Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason:

Here on Freedom@Work, we’ve kept you updated about the Obama Administration’s payback after payback to the union bosses who spent over one billion dollars in 2008 getting Barack Obama and other forced unionism proponents elected.

From rolling back union disclosure guidelines to slashing the budget of the Department of Labor’s union watchdog agency to blacklistining nonunion construction workers from "stimulus" projects, the Obama Administration hasn’t been shy about rewarding union brass.

So Friday’s news about the White House’s visitor list isn’t exactly a shocker, but it says an awful lot about the Administration’s priorities: no one has visited the White House more than Service Employees International Union chief Andy Stern.

Stern, of course, is one of the nation’s most politically powerful union barons.  Under Stern’s reign, the SEIU has also been marked by scandal after scandal, dissatisfied and unhappy workers and union members, and vicious campaigns against workers and employers.