(Chuck Muth) – In the most recent edition of FedEx’s absurdly misnamed “The Brown Bailout Newsletter,” the company’s ghost-writer asks:
“How much is UPS willing to pay for a secret, anti-competitive bailout that could raise consumer prices and reduce reliability in overnight deliveries? For UPS, its lobbying costs nearly tripled in the past three months alone. UPS spent $4.4 million on lobbying charges between July and September, more than three times as much in the previous quarter ($1.4 million).
“So what did the $4.4 million buy UPS? A UPS spokesman who was quoted in a Bloomberg article on the lobby expenditures said a ‘significant portion’ of the increased lobbying costs went to an employee letter writing campaign on labor legislation and other activities ‘to educate officials about our perspective…’”
1.) There is no bailout…as we all know. Calling a dog a horse doesn’t make a dog a horse. This is just FedEx’s silly PR effort to fool the uneducated into thinking there’s a bailout involved where no bailout is involved. It’s dishonest as hell, but FedEx couldn’t care less.
2.) There’s nothing “secret” about this issue at all. We’re talking about a very public piece of federal legislation which has been discussed and debated and considered for many months. And in reality, this issue has been around for YEARS. Falsely calling this bill “secret” is, again, dishonest. But at least it’s par for the FedEx course.
3.) FedEx claims the bill “could” raise consumer prices without backing up its claim. This is just a “feeling” FedEx has. If the bill passes, FedEx says this might happen or that might happen – but no one can say for sure that ANY of FedEx’s doomsday scenarios will ever take place.
4.) FedEx claims the bill “could” reduce reliability in overnight deliveries. Again, they don’t back up their claim. It’s just a feeling. The subliminal message they are trying to convey, however, is that the bill *might* result in FedEx going union, and that the union *might* someday go out on strike, and if it does, there *might* be an impact on express deliveries.
Thank goodness we’d still have UPS to pick up the slack!
5.) But the most outrageous aspect of this typically outrageous piece of FedEx propaganda is this whining about UPS increasing its lobbying efforts over the last three months – as though there was some sinister, underhanded “black box” operation going on. What a load of flapdoodle.
Here’s what really happened…
Last June, FedEx launched a largely anonymous, misleading, multi-million dollar attack campaign against UPS in an effort to retain special treatment under the law which gives them a huge marketing advantage over their competitors.
If you want to talk about “secret,” just try asking FedEx which PR firm is behind their dishonest advertising campaign and how much they’re spending on it.
In any event, UPS reportedly went to their employees, explained how FedEx’s ad campaign was jeopardizing their livelihoods, and helped them contact their members of Congress on a piece of pending legislation.
The company has simply been responding to FedEx’s attacks – and the cost of that campaign, unlike FedEx’s efforts, is open and fully disclosed.
And since when did it become wrong for citizens of the United States to contact their elected representatives in Congress, educate them about their perspective, and petition for redress of a grievance – in this case the unfair and special treatment FedEx enjoys under our labor laws?
Oh, and by the way – FedEx is nothing if not a master of hypocrisy on this issue.
In the same email newsletter complaining about UPS employees contacting their members of Congress, “The Brown Bailout Newsletter” includes this prominent link:
“Act Now: If you haven’t written your legislators, do it now.”
Shameless.
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