newsworthy
Congress extends FAA funding to
March 31
The House of Representatives in early December voted unanimously
to extend from Dec. 30 until March 31 programs funding the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), marking the 16th time in three years
the current law has been extended.
The House action, which punts action on the FAA’s funding programs
to the 112th Congress, also keeps alive language in the House version that
would reclassify FedEx Corp.’s air express operations under a different
labor law. The language would put all employees of FedEx Express, except
for pilots and mechanics, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
instead of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which currently governs the
unit’s labor relations. The NLRA is considered an easier path to unioniza-tion because it permits organizing on a local basis. By contrast, the RLA
allows a company to be organized only as one nationwide bargaining unit.
FedEx’s chairman and CEO, Frederick W. Smith, bitterly opposes
the measure. Smith, whose animus toward organized labor goes back
decades, has threatened to cancel orders for up to 30 Boeing 777
freighters if the measure passes.
UPS Inc., FedEx’s chief rival, supports the change, saying that it will
create a level playing field between the two companies and that the unit’s
workers—except for pilots and mechanics—operate ground handling
services and should be governed by the NLRA, which covers operations
in the trucking industry. UPS’s operations are governed by the NLRA.
In a statement, FedEx spokesman Maury Lane said that “we hope
the new Congress will act quickly to develop and pass a new bill, with-
out the anti-competitive bailout provision that benefits only UPS and
has nothing to do with the bill’s main purpose. It was clear from the
election that voters are tired of backroom deals that put corporate
interests ahead of the public good.”
The Senate’s version of the bill does not include the controversial
FedEx provision. It was thought that the House would drop the FedEx
language from its version because the measure’s principal supporter,
James L. Oberstar, lost his bid for re-election in the November mid-
year elections. ;
accolades
; Big Ass win. Big Ass Fan Co. has been named Kentucky
Manufacturer of the Year in the mid-sized business category. Big
Ass Fan Co., a manufacturer of large-diameter low-speed fans used
in distribution and manufacturing facilities, earned the award for
excellence in manufacturing.
; Great feat. Greatwide Logistics Services, a third-party logistics
service provider, has been recognized by pallet pooling company
CHEP with its Innovation Award. Greatwide received the award for
demonstrating service center innovation through enhanced productivity, cost efficiency, quality, and safety.
Federal and state officials have broken
ground on a project creating a so-called
marine highway in Northern California. The
program is designed to take cargo off the
roads and rails and instead move it by barge
between the ports of Oakland, Stockton, and
West Sacramento.
The project, nicknamed the Green Trade
Corridor, is being seeded with a $30 million
grant from the federally funded infrastructure
program known as TIGER. Under the project,
set for completion in early 2012, barges will
move cargo along the inland waterway system
from Stockton and West Sacramento to the
Port of Oakland for ultimate shipment to
Asian destinations, officials said.
Maritime Administrator David T. Matsuda
said the project will not only reduce carbon
emissions from trucks traveling the busy
Interstate 580 corridor, but will also “create
new alternatives throughout Northern
California to transport exports to the Far East.”
Grant money will be used to build a staging
area at the Port of Stockton for cargoes dedicated to the service. It will also fund construction of a distribution center in West
Sacramento that will mostly be used to
repack agricultural products from California’s
Central Valley into containerized loads for
export to Far East markets, officials said.
The initiative is part of a federally funded
program to divert cargo and passenger traffic
from congested roads to underutilized inland
waterways, many of them along coastal highways. Supporters of the program say the
25,000 miles of navigable U.S. waterways
handle slightly more than 2 percent of the
nation’s domestic shipments and have the
capacity to accommodate much more.
Because one barge tow can transport 456
containers that might otherwise move by
truck, shifting even a modest amount of
cargo to water would be both cost-effective
and environmentally friendly, backers say.
Skeptics maintain that “marine highways”
will always be a slower means of freight
transportation than truck or intermodal service, making them a poor fit for many industries, and that the additional cargo handling
needed will actually drive up costs. ;
Ground broken on California
marine highway project
