Nader to Speak at "Save Ohio Jobs" Coalition Rally in Wilmington
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Marc Abizeid, 831-818-7736, marcabizeid@votenader.org (national);
Justin Jeffre, 917-881-9882, justinjeffre@votenader.org (local)
RALPH NADER AND MATT GONZALEZ STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH OHIO WORKERS, POISED TO ADDRESS WILMINGTON RALLY MONDAY, SEPT. 8
On
Monday, September 8 at 4:30 p.m., Independent Presidential Candidate
Ralph Nader and running mate Matt Gonzalez will speak at a rally held
at the Kelly Center of Wilmington College, 113 College St. Wilmington,
OH 45177. The event is sponsored by the "Save Ohio Jobs" coalition
which is demonstrating against the closure of a DHL freight hub in
Wilmington.
DHL's parent company, Deutsche Post World Net
(DPWN), is in the midst of a deal with United Parcel Service (UPS)
which would allow UPS to take over their regional operations. If the
agreement is finalized, DHL shipping operations would be transferred to
a UPS facility in Kentucky and force the closure of DHL's Wilmington
hub.
Also threatened by the deal are employees of Airborne
Express, and its offshoot ABX Air, which was acquired by DHL in 2003 to
transfer shipments. Shutting down the hub, which is Wilmington's
largest employer, would cost between 8,000 and 10,000 workers their
jobs.
This proposed deal will severely impact the
local community including the following consequences identified by the
Save Ohio Jobs coalition:
- One out of every three households in Wilmington, Ohio has a family member employed by ABX Air or DHL
- The closure of the Wilmington hub translates to the immediate loss of 10,000 ABX, ASTAR Air Cargo and DHL jobs
-
As the seismic effects of this closure roll through Wilmington, the
city may lose up to 30,000 jobs as more businesses are forced to close
- According to the regional economic task force, 18 businesses may be forced to relocate due to the proposed agreement
- The task force also estimates the total short-term economic impact would be over half a billion dollars
Ralph
Nader and Matt Gonzalez stand in solidarity with those workers whose
jobs are being threatened by the vicious currents of corporate
globalization.
Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez will call for a
Roundtable, a massive comprehensive lengthy community dialogue of
several days where all the stakeholders and the company put all their
cards on the table and see if they can come up with a solution that is
good for the community.
Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez will also
call on the Justice Department to undertake an antitrust inquiry to see
what the anti-competitive consequences of this proposed deal may be,
given that it is already a concentrated industry that is a tight
oligopoly.
Controversy surrounding the legality of the proposed
deal has also caught the attention of Congress. Last month, two US
Senators, Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), sent a letter to
officials at DHL and UPS raising antitrust concerns.
"We believe
that this proposed agreement raises important antitrust and competition
issues that should be examined carefully by the Department of Justice
or the Federal Trade Commission...," they wrote. "Having only two
airlines providing national airlift capacity for overnight package
delivery could raise the risk of serious economic disruption should one
of these two airlines be reduced due to unforeseen difficulties."
Wilmington's
congressional representative Mike Turner opposes the deal and sent a
letter co-signed by John McCain inviting Deutche Post World Net
President to visit Wilmington to discuss the company's plans
Although
McCain expressed sympathy for the workers and vowed to push the Justice
Department to investigate the deal during a recent campaign stop in
Wilmington, the Cleveland Plain Dealer revealed last month that
McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was previously a Deutsche Post
World Net lobbyist and was paid $185,000 to help secure DHL's 2003
acquisition of Airborne Express. The company also paid Davis $405,000
for other work.
A congressional hearing on the DHL-UPS deal has been scheduled for September 16th .
For more information call Tony Olsen of the Save Ohio Jobs coalition at 913-707-2471.
