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Sen. Brown Chastises DHL for Refusing Petitions Protesting Deal with UPS
Submitted by Jeff on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 1:25pm.
This fracas over DHL's plan to take its package-handling business out of Wilmington, Ohio by means of a suspect deal with competitor UPS is really heating up. More than 8,000 area jobs could be lost if the deal goes through.
Antitrust concerns have been raised about the deal by federal, state, and local officials. Attempts by various government officials to talk DHL out of pursuing the deal have fallen on deaf ears.
Lately the Airline Pilots Association, International (ALPA) has being aggressively protesting the deal, since their members fly for DHL. They filed a labor grievance and have run ads in Columbus and in a few other Ohio papers. They also tried to run an ad in a German newspaper (DHL is headquartered in Bonn, Germany), but the local paper won't run it, and they admitted it was because they don't want to upset DHL. More on that here and on a new web site set up by the union here.
On Monday (6/30), petitions with more than nine thousand signatures were delivered to the Wilmington facility, objecting to the deal. The petitions were refused by DHL management and were eventually left with a security guard. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Avon), who has been actively working on this situation, was on the scene in order to lead a town hall meeting about in Wilmington on Monday afternoon.
Brown fired off an angry letter [.pdf]to DHL today:
Regardless of whether the dismissive treatment to which these individuals were subjected stemmed from a misunderstanding or was intentional, it must be rectified immediately. I would like to personally deliver the petitions to you and discuss your company’s future role in Wilmington. ...I ask that before Deutsche Post World Net and DHL follow through on a plan that will undermine the financial wellbeing of thousands of Ohio families, wreak havoc on the region in which they live, and squander infrastructure put in place to support your corporate goals, you see fit to consider alternative strategies consistent with sound corporate leadership and basic corporate citizenship. ...
This fight isn't over by a long shot.
It's over people......
I work for DHL, it's over...... the deal has already been struck with UPS. Much of our freight has already been shifted to the USPS and secretly to UPS (they didn't want to upset the Teamsters). I have seen the shipping volume in my service center drop to unseen lows and we are in the process of laying off people right now. DHL screwed the families and government of Ohio, turned their backs on their own employees and our Federal government allowed it to happen. DHL would not have pulled out of Wilmington if the federal government had lifted the ban on foreign companies owning and airline within the United States. DHL petitioned and lobbied for years, only to be shut down despite their warnings of a potential pull out. I do blame DHL for piss poor management of the United States market but I also place some of the blame on the feds for not repealing a law that puts handcuffs on companies like DHL from becoming major players in this market. You petitions should not only go to DHL Express but also to our congressional leaders.