FedEx may face boycott
By Jun Ji-hye
The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union is planning to launch a boycott of FedEx over its delivery of live anthrax samples.
“We will fight with every possible means including a nationwide boycott until the company establishes proper measures to prevent a reoccurrence of such an incident,” the union said in a statement.
The move comes in protest against the firm’s bungled response to sending the deadly toxin to a U.S. military lab in Korea from Utah.
Jung Chan-moo, who is in charge of air and sea transport at the union, criticized FedEx Korea, the delivery firm’s Korean arm.
“The company just said it complied with safety regulations without making any apology,” he told The Korea Times.
The union will hold a news conference Friday to announce its plans in front of the company’s building in Seoul.
Employees of FedEx Korea belong to the union, an affiliate of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the nation’s second-largest umbrella union.
The U.S.-based firm is the world’s top package courier and has been embroiled in controversy after accidently delivering live anthrax samples for military experiments across the United States as well as to Canada, Australia and South Korea among others, according to the Pentagon.
Citizens in Korea have already shown concern in using the global delivery service.
Kwon Ah-reum, 31, who works for an international trade company in Seoul, said she does not want to use the firm for future overseas deliveries.
“I sometimes use the service when purchasing products directly from overseas markets or sending stuff to my sister in Miami,” she said. “Since I found out the firm delivered anthrax, I decided I will never ever use it again.
“It might sound too much, but I also want to sue the company for its poor confirmation process for contents,” she added.
Kim Ji-won, 36, a management consultant in Seoul, said it would be better to use other delivery firms from now on if the U.S. military keeps using FedEx to send anthrax samples.
“I believe the delivery has been conducted under a business-to-business (B2B) service between the U.S. Department of Defense and FedEx, which would mean that the Pentagon has constantly used the firm for such deliveries,” he said. “It is horrible to think about the possibility that there could have been unknown accidents.”
The Korea Times questioned FedEx on the route of the sample that was shipped to Korea, the contents of the invoice, the packaging method as well as preventive measures, but the company declined to elaborate further on its original statement.
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