US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain yesterday turned DHL’s planned closure ofits Wilmington air hub and its proposed cooperation with UPS into a top-level campaign issue. More
than 8,000 jobs would be lost in a key political battleground amid growing fears of a US recession.Separately, pilots of DHL airlift supplier Astar Air Cargo took further legal action against theplanned DHL-UPS airlift deal.Obama, who discussed the DHL issue with Ohio officials earlier this month, yesterday wrote tothe White House Domestic Policy Council calling on the US justice department to investigate theDHL-UPS agreement for potential anti-trust issues, and urging government support to help DHLworkers find new jobs should the deal go ahead.
“As a matter of antitrust law, the proposed consolidation of DHL’s domestic airliftoperations under a competitor, UPS, raises concern. At the very least, the DOJ should examinewhether having two competitors in a fairly concentrated market act as partners would haveanti-competitive effects,” Obama wrote. The Democrat candidate had met Wilmington mayor DavidRaizk, and officials from the Teamsters union and Astar Air Cargo on July 11.
The Republican candidate, John McCain, yesterday issued a statement saying he supported thedemand for the proposed DHL-UPS deal to be reviewed by federal and state agencies “for anypotential violations of applicable law”. He also favoured government assistance for DHL workers wholost their jobs.
The statements were welcomed by Wilmington mayor David Raizk who commented that since Ohiowas such a critical state “in some ways, the road to the presidency leads through Wilmington”. The “ Save The Jobs” coalition of community leaders and DHL Wilmington workers had previously called onboth Obama and McCain to visit the hub to talk directly with affected staff. McCain will visitWilmington in early August, according to the Dayton Daily News.
Meanwhile, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), representing pilots of Astar Air Cargo,said it has filed a lawsuit against DHL Holdings USA (DHL), suing the company for breach ofcontract and fraudulent inducement. The union said it is asking the court to enjoin DHL from movingits flying work from ASTAR to UPS.
ALPA alleged that by proposing to shift its North American flying work away from Astar toUPS, DHL is breaching job security commitments it agreed to provide to Astar pilots in return forvarious benefits it received under the current labour contract. The suit also alleges that DHLfraudulently induced ALPA to dismiss lawsuits against DHL by promising to underwrite the jobsecurity commitments, even as it engaged in secret discussions with UPS on an agreement that wasinconsistent with those commitments.
Astar pilots have recently staged protests at DHL’s US headquarters at Plantation, Florida,in front of the UPS headquarters in Atlanta and at a DHL-sponsored baseball match.
