the bs gets deep

political sloganeering is a fascinating contact sport. somewhere deep within the bowels of every hopeful and selfishly-motivated political plot these days is a wordsmithing operation to make upton sinclair blush, and the bs (and the nation-screwing hypocrisy) is getting powerfully deep. to wit: there's now a PR campaign being initiated by fed-ex to paint currently-proposed legislation in dc (republican house, yo) as a "bailout" try by ups. even the "even-handed" news articles who cannot help but point out the word "bailout" is bs, since, literally, there's no money being requested or argued here, paints the thing as an attempt by ups and the teamsters to "hobble" fed-ex and create an unfair playing ground.

except, just think about this for a minute:

the government itself, at the behest of some extremely corrupt railroad magnates back in the day, created this prima facie unfair playing ground to exempt "express" shipping operations (in the day, railroads, and today, airlines), from regulations governing trucking. (even the language of the railway "labor" act makes it obvious--stating its intent to "avoid any interruption to commerce", which doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude is squarely aimed at defeating unions and their inconvenient proclivity to strike). fed-ex, because it carries the majority of its packages at some point in their transit on an airplane, earns itself RLA "regulation", which if i might be so bold to translate for you means "not so much regulation". on the other hand, ups, whose majority of packages toddle around the country on only trucks, gets to live under the national labor relations act, which is far more union-friendly, to put it kindly. as you can imagine, the labor costs for fed-ex are a fraction of ups', and even though they tend to charge you and me far more for what they do than does ups, they're crying foul about the possibility of having to face a unionized workforce in the loudest and least reasonable way. (next time you buy something online, compare the fed-ex costs with the ups costs--go ahead--and let me know what you find).

want to know how i read this? (of course you do).

if the goal were truly a level playing field, there would be a counter-proposed bill that would insist we drop nlrb regulation of ups so that they could enjoy the same union-free existence of their fiercest competitor. THAT would be fair. THAT would be level. THAT would put the interest of competition ahead of the interest of screwing your competitor.

but that's not what's being argued here. on the one hand ups is asking in the only way they are legally allowed to let ONE set of rules govern competing businesses. it's a bad way, since it would, as all opposed seem to agree, put the union sclerosis completely across the entire package delivery industry. (i linked you upton sinclair's seminal work above so that you could read it if you have not, and become disabused of any notion that unions were created for selfish reasons, and have not been NECESSARY to create this great nation of ours that we know and love today, though it must be argued and observed that union behavior these days is very often exactly what is choking the life out of the businesses that pay them, and the us auto industry is a good case in point after you read all about the teamsters strikes which have crippled ups in the past). but if one were to take the rla regulations and spread them liberally (ok, that was a bad pun) across ALL the package delivery and other transportation industries THAT and only THAT would be both creating a level playing field and doing it in a way that encouraged the financial health of corporations and lower prices. (at the cost, potentially, of turning fed-ex and ups into giant mobile walmarts in terms of employee treatment and compensation, but who's counting these days when one has a job, which, it might be pointed out, was exactly how we came to need unions in the first place 150+ years ago, but, as i said, who's counting).

but "bailout"??? puh-leeeeeeeeze. what we have here is a tug-of-war initiated by a union aimed at creating the kind of level playing field that benefits THEM. fed-ex has tried to turn it into a semantic bullshit argument about a "bailout" that is anything but, to maintain the decidedly UN-LEVEL playing field that enjoys for them such fat profits. NOBODY is advocating for those of us who might enjoy cheaper and faster package delivery, and who might prefer a level playing field that benefits the consumer while it also benefits the robber barons running the "infrastructure" for us.

now, there's a whole 'nuther argument to be had about unions which i'm purposefully obfuscating here. we are being told that we have to screw unions to return to prosperity, and it's an argument that's not without merit observing the destruction of entire industries (auto, etc.) due to economically unsustainable union compensation and benefits (pension funding always seeming to be the rhode-island-sized straw that breaks every commercial camel's back), but this always as seems to be these days forgets the reason we have books like "the jungle" and the reason we have unions (and workers not living in company slums) and a prosperous workforce these days, which, i should remind all the pro-business types and they are so quick to remind the rest of us, is where they get their market for all that package delivery in the first place, but i, as i always do, digress.

we are losing our minds because we are losing our ability to call things what they are, and not what their corrupt proponents want us to think they are.

there's no bailout.

there's a question of whether our federal labor regulations are fair, and it's obvious that, when it comes to fed-ex and ups they are not. it would be nice if we could do something fair about that.