Thanks for Not Sending "Any Brown Shirts After Me"

A bill is headed to the House floor which will make it easier for teamsters to unionize FedEx workers. FedEx, which was technically founded as an airline, has been protected from unionization under the Railway Labor Act (don't think about it too hard). But that anti-union protection would be removed by the FAA Reauthorization Act. UPS, which is already unionized, has heavily backed the bill so that FedEx will have the same labor costs as its competitor:

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., a member of the committee, again objected to the language, saying that "to subject the No. 1 commercial carrier in this country to a strike which the Railway Labor Act is designed to protect against" would be a mistake….

Cohen noted that fellow Democrat [Rep. James L.] Oberstar had a reputation for remembering "everything since Orville Wright went to North Carolina." He then thanked Oberstar for not sending "any brown shirts after me," a reference to the uniforms of UPS.

Some analysts say the company's expenses could increase by as much as 30 percent, if a significant percentage of its 290,000 workers are unionized.

Of course, unionizing the company will be much easier if card check passes.