In an email call-to-action distributed by the anonymous lobbyists behind FedEx’s “Brown Bailout” campaign, readers recently were told the following:

“This week the Senate is scheduled to vote on the FAA Reauthorization Act… Unfortunately, the House of Representatives version of the bill contains a corporate bailout. This time the bailout isn’t for a bank or an auto company — it’s for UPS. UPS lobbyists and the Teamsters quietly inserted a 230-word legislative bailout into the FAA bill. The ‘Brown Bailout’ gives UPS a significant competitive advantage by harming its main competitor, FedEx Express.”

First, as you know, there’s been nothing “quiet” about the amendment in question which would place FedEx Express drivers under the same law as every other express delivery driver in the nation. The issue has been around for many, many years. Suggesting this provision was “inserted” in some secret “back room deal” is simply dishonest.

More importantly, however, this legislative change isn’t a “bailout” under any reasonable definition other than by FedEx. If passed, the amendment wouldn’t give UPS a “significant competitive advantage” by harming FedEx; it would eliminate a loophole in the law which presently and for years has given FedEx a “significant competitive advantage” over UPS.

The FedEx Loophole treats FedEx Express drivers under federal labor law as if they were pilots, while treating UPS drivers as if they were, well, drivers. Unless or until FedEx Express drivers begin delivering packages to homes and businesses by plane, they should be treated, under the law, like every other express delivery driver.

FedEx claims that when it started doing business, it was an airline – while UPS has always been a trucking company. And that’s true. However, both companies have since “morphed” into the door-to-door express delivery business since. And as both companies now provide the same service – a service which neither company provided when they first began – both companies should be treated the same under the law.

An actor who enters stage left and an actor who enters stage right are both actors in the same play regardless of how they got on the same stage. Ditto express delivery drivers. Both should be covered under the same labor law regardless of how FedEx and UPS came into the express delivery business. We urge Congress to close the FedEx Loophole.