Mid Week Report 3-10-09

There were a couple of items of interest this week.

First the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced into both Chambers of Congress today. The house bill is H.R.1409, and S.560 in the Senate. Having done some work in organizing I have seen firsthand why this legislation is needed. In addition as I have previously reported several companies including UPS, Harley Davidson, ATT and Verizon utilize recognition agreements. As of today none of those companies are failing even in a serious economic downturn. How can they afford to do this when Home Depot can't? Here is an article from CNN on the issue. This an excerpt from the article (If a retailer has not gotten involved with fight over this bill, he "should be shot," Bernie Marcus, co-founder and former CEO of The Home Depot, said during a conference call about the act last October. Retailers who don't speak out against it "should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.") In contrast here is an open letter from leading economists supporting the legislation. And finally this article from Politico describes the job opportunities created by these bills. It's a good read and the people gaining from this are not who you would normally think about.

Today UAL presented at the JP Morgan Chase Transportation conference. Here is a link to the presentation from Kathyrn Mikells. While she says many things about the screwing labor took, it is still worth listening to if you have thirty seven minutes. One of the items she discusses is M&A activity in the industry and how it would be very difficult because of the current credit market. The link requires you to register, but it is free.

Another piece of interesting legislation was introduced by Congressman Obertstar. It can be found on the San Fran teamsters site here. This is a bill that would require a review of antitrust immunity with the purpose of promoting further competition in regards to Airline conglomerates.

As many of you know I am leaving Thursday for Teamsters negotiations training which will be followed by hopefully the final steering committee meeting. I should be returning on the 20th so the reports will deal mainly with what is happening in San Fran regarding negotiations for a short time.

That's all for now,
Bob