UPS forces workers to write lawmakers, employees say

By Dan Eggen

The Washington Post

In an increasingly bitter Washington battle between the nation’s two largest shipping companies, some unionized UPS workers say they are being forced to write letters to their lawmakers in support of more stringent labor rules for archrival FedEx.

Officials with UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 240,000 UPS drivers, acknowledge that the company has paid for workers’ time to pen many of the letters and has supplied the envelopes, paper and stamps needed to mail thousands of them to Congress. UPS spokesman Malcolm Berkley said the effort was “totally voluntary, and any allegations to the contrary are ridiculous.”

But Internet sites dedicated to UPS-related discussions feature dozens of accounts from anonymous employees who have said they were forced to write the letters or felt they would be punished. Such tactics could run afoul of both labor laws and lobbying disclosure requirements, according to legal experts.

Memphis-based FedEx and the office of Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) also have received e-mails, calls and letters from UPS employees alleging intimidation by the union or UPS supervisors, according to FedEx officials and an Alexander aide.

Scott Dennis, one of those who contacted FedEx by e-mail, said he was a part-time loader at a UPS facility in Greensboro, N.C., when he was pulled into a room with other employees and told to write letters in support of the legislation. Instead, he said, he wrote a letter critical of government intervention and quit in disgust a week later.

“We were expected to toe the line,” Dennis said.

The letter-writing campaign is part of a fierce legislative fight between UPS and FedEx, which together have spent nearly $10 million on federal lobbying in the first half of the year. The feud captures the prominence of mass mailings, Internet campaigns and other grass-roots efforts to catch the attention of Congress, even in relatively arcane disputes.

At issue is House legislation passed earlier this year that would make it easier to unionize FedEx’s lucrative express-air operation, which is currently treated as an airline under labor rules that limit strikes and require unions to organize nationally rather than locally. UPS, by contrast, is treated as a trucking firm, allowing for easier union organizing.

UPS and the union are now concentrating on persuading the Senate to adopt the provision. “We hope at the end of the day the Senate will see this as a simple issue of fairness,” said Ken Hall, head of the Teamsters’ package division.