ACADEMICS RECOMMEND CHANGES TO PACKAGE INDUSTRY LABOR LAWS

ACADEMICS RECOMMEND CHANGES TO PACKAGE INDUSTRY LABOR LAWS    Two studies released by Georgia State University’s W.J. Usery Jr. Center for the Workplace recommend that the labor laws covering the express package delivery industry should be re-examined by the government.
   The studies — “Taking Labor Relations Regulations Out of Market Competition” and “The Economic Significance of the Express Package Industry” — reported that the three largest express package firms ” United Parcel Service, FedEx Corp. and the U.S. Postal Service — operate under three different sets of labor laws, despite similarities in service.
   UPS operates under both the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act. Federal Express operates under the Railway Labor Act, while the U.S. Postal Service follows the rules of the Postal Reorganization Act and Fair Labor Standards Act.
   The Usery Center recommends that “the express package industry should be placed under the Railway Labor Act to eliminate the competitive imbalance within the private sector and to somewhat offset USPS’s statutory protection from strike to the benefit of the consumer, the competitors and organized labor.”
   The studies also found that companies covered under the Railway Labor Act have far greater predictability in labor negotiations compared to their competitors under the National Labor Relations Act.