Things just keep getting better and better

…for unions, not the American people. Not only have unions become majority owners of Chrysler in a deal that calls into question the integrity of contracts after the Obama Administration is finished with them, but now Teamsters’ and UPS are teaming up to harm FedEx, UPS’s primary competitor. As George F. Will writes:

Nevertheless, today’s Democratic majority in Congress, with UPS now aligned with the Teamsters, wants to put FedEx’s ground pickup and delivery operations under the NLRA, thereby making FedEx’s entire integrated system susceptible to disruption by local disputes.

He goes on to explain how Democrats are planning to expand the National Labor Relations Act to cover FedEx’s ground division which is currently covered by the Railway Labor Act. As Will explains, the RLA “ensure[s] that any bargaining unit for workers must be systemwide so that no local unit could hold the railroads hostage.” Operations like FedEx were covered by the RLA instead of the NLRA because this didn’t allow a unit in Nashville, TN affect a unit in Anchorage, AK for example. All union negotiations are made on a system-wide level.

Right now, UPS isn’t doing too hot. And UPS happens to be a Teamsters’ stronghold while FedEx is not. So, as the government no longer respects the free market and contracts between two parties (i.e. employment contracts), they’re trying to harm FedEx. But not by offering a better product or services, reducing prices, or doing anything that would attract consumers to them and not to FedEx. They’re trying to harm FedEx by bringing the coercive arm of the government to implement a law that would make FedEx’s operations more suspectible to stoppages due to local disputes.

Yet another example of why the government should not involve itself in the free market. Big Business teams up with Big Government to make our economy less efficient which ends up being paid for, not by Big Business, but by consumers, individuals like you and me. Because if the law is changed, FedEx will be forced to cancel a “multibillion-dollar order for 15 Boeing 777s” which would not only make FedEx operations more efficient (thereby reducing costs), but also keeps people employed making aircraft. Something that would actually “create or save” thousands of jobs which just might be welcome in this economy.