This is an excellent summary of the campaign out of Business Week.
FedEx hopes to harness taxpayer ire sparked by the word "bailout" to kill legislation in Congress that would help nearly 100,000 of its workers to unionize more easily. FedEx argues the bill would hobble it with higher costs and less reliability across its network and represents unfair government aid for its chief rival, UPS.
The dispute involves the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009, which contains a provision that would change the labor law covering FedEx workers. Language introduced in the bill by U.S. Representative James Oberstar (D-Minn.) would subject FedEx workers to the same rules as those performing similar work for Atlanta-based UPS. The measure affects employees of FedEx Express, which along with FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Office comprises FedEx, but not the status of FedEx Express workers who are air-based, such as pilots and airplane mechanics. The bill passed the House on May 21 and is now in the Senate, where a similar House measure failed in 2007.
FedEx's campaign, dubbed "Brown Bailout," debuted June 9 online and could be followed by television and print ads. The company wants consumers to complain to their senators about the legislation. On Brownbailout.com, the FedEx campaign's Web site, a man in front of a whiteboard describes "getting a government bailout" in a manner similar to UPS' "Brown" marketing campaign. After stating that UPS is struggling to compete with FedEx, which ships a higher percentage of its parcels by air, the man says, "So what do you do? Well, you could try to improve your own business…well, that's hard work. Instead, how about slipping a few words into an important government bill that gets you a bailout?" He uses his marker to turn the S in UPS into a dollar sign. "We're doing it right now, but shhh…don't tell anybody."
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Fred is going to try to keep FedEx employees from unionizing, by attacking UPS and trying to make the argument that FedEx is an airline, and not a "trucking company". This is classic smoke and mirrors. Fred can't directly attack the employees, so he takes what is known in military circles as the "indirect approach". One doesn't go straight at one's objective, one takes an easier course of action which will inevitability achieve one's real objective in due course. By framing the issue as granting UPS an unfair advantage (what Fred is trying to call a UPS "bailout"), he can achieve his true objective in keeping FedEx employees from being able to successfully unionize. Like I wrote before, he is "fangs out" on this one.
