Up Front

List

Presented with an offer too good to refuse, less-than-truckload carrier American Freightways (AF) agreed last month to be acquired by FedEx Corp. for about $1.2 billion. FedEx will create a subsidiary that includes AF, which serves most of the nation east of the Rocky Mountains, and Viking Freight, a regional LTL carrier that serves 12 Western states. That will allow FedEx to offer regional LTL service in every state except Montana and Wyoming. The FedEx offer, half cash and half stock priced at $28.13 per share, represented a large premium over AF's market price of about $17.00 a share at the time of the announcement. Also included in the $1.2 billion deal is about $250 million in debt that FedEx will assume. FedEx expects to complete the acquisition early next year. Look for more details in next month's issue of Logistics Management & Distribution Report.

After months of dispute over pricing issues, CNF Inc.'s Emery Worldwide Airline unit and the U.S. Postal Service have agreed to cancel a contract that called for Emery to provide transportation and sorting services for Priority Mail. The contract will conclude next month. Under the agreement's terms, CNF retains the right to pursue claims for underpayment and says it plans to do so.

The Justice Department, not the Surface Transportation Board, should have jurisdiction over railroad mergers, say the American Chemistry Council and the American Plastics Council. The two groups made the recommendation in joint comments filed with the STB in reply to the agency's proposed changes in rules governing rail mergers. If jurisdiction is not transferred, the trade groups argue, then the proposed rules must be strengthened to give greater protection to shippers from railroads' anticompetitive practices. The STB issued its proposed rulemaking in October. It expects to issue a final rule by June 11, 2001.

CANACAR, the organization representing most Mexican trucking companies, is on the warpath again. In October and November, the group partially blocked several major highways in Mexico to protest what it claimed was illegal participation by U.S.-owned trucking companies in Mexican domestic transportation. At issue is a contradiction between Mexican transportation laws, which reserve domestic trucking for Mexican-owned companies, and NAFTA-influenced foreign-investment laws. The dispute has been simmering ever since NAFTA took effect in 1993 but has come to a head recently as U.S. motor carriers have upped their ownership levels in Mexican companies. In mid-November, CANACAR officials told El Financiero, Mexico's daily business newspaper, that if the federal government failed to respond favorably to a petition that the group planned to present during the Expo Transporte trade show in Guadalajara, they would step up action against M.S. Carriers and its Mexican partner, Transportes EASO. Those carriers have been frequent targets of CANACAR's complaints.

A new trade show focused on supply chain issues in Latin America is in the planning stages. The Supply Chain World Latin America Conference, sponsored by the Supply Chain Council, will take place on March 5 and 6, 2001, in Melia Turquesa, Cancun, Mexico. More information on the conference is available at www.supplychainworld.org or by calling the council at (412) 781-4101, ext. 106.

Business interests wasted no time in challenging ergonomic work standards issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Last month, OSHA announced a final rule that will impose the standards on much of the nation's workforce. The agency, which says the rules are needed to help prevent injuries caused by overexertion or repetitive motion, reports that 1.8 million workers experience those sorts of injuries each year and that 600,000 are injured severely enough to require time off from work. Opponents argue that OSHA's rules are based on faulty research and that implementing them will cost industry billions of dollars each year. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the International Warehouse Logistics Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and others immediately sued OSHA in an effort to block implementation of the rules, which were due to take effect next month.

Hazardous-materials professionals have a new resource available for training over the Internet. The Conference on Safe Transportation of Hazardous Materials has developed the COSTHA Online Institute, which offers members training on such topics as hazardous materials and dangerous goods, occupational safety and health, transportation safety, environmental compliance, emergency response and management, and human resources. The course content was developed for COSTHA by AdvanceOnline Inc., a company that specializes in Web-based training. The site can be found at costha.advanceonline.com.

Promised soon on the Internet: real-time information on ship arrivals, the status of arriving cargo, and highway traffic in the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The information will be available on a new Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Web site, www.firstnynj.com. The system will be called the Freight Information Real-time System for Transport, or FIRST. The port intends to integrate information from a number of sources to provide users with "one-stop shopping" for data needed for planning cargo pickup and delivery.

Not every logistics problem needs a high-tech solution. Sometimes, management savvy and low tech is the way to go. Do you have a low-tech success story? Logistics Management & Distribution Report is looking for examples of low-tech solutions to logistics problems. If you think you have a good example, send us an e-mail at LM@cahners.com, detailing your problem and the low-tech way you solved it. We'll share the best answers in the pages of the magazine and on our Web site.

A delegation of logistics professionals will travel to Cuba in March. The trip is being organized by the American People Ambassador Program of People to People International. It will be led by Kenneth Ackerman, president of the K.B. Ackerman Co. and a veteran logistics consultant. The plan calls for the group to visit logistics professionals and facilities in Havana, Santa Clara, and Cienfuegos. The exchange should provide insight into Cuba's logistics infrastructure and offer Cuban logistics professionals information on North American logistics. People to People organizes exchanges for professionals to Cuba and other nations. Previous logistics exchanges included trips to China in 1983 and the then-U.S.S.R. in 1989.

Skilled foreign workers can help relieve a tight high-tech labor market in the United States, but providing adequate training for U.S. workers is also a critical element, says a new report from a committee of the National Academies' National Research Council. The report grew out of a congressional debate over what level of work visas to allow for high-tech foreign workers. The committee recommended greater efforts by employers, employees, and educational institutions to prepare workers for high-tech jobs. The study, "Building a Workforce for the Information Economy," was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and NASA.