Federal assistance may be available to the Wilmington area if DHL contracts air shipments with the United Parcel Service (UPS).

U.S. Rep. Mike Turner said Wednesday the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Labor have agreed to designate specific liasions to our community “that can funnel all of the emergency resources” of commerce and labor to Wilmington, “including issues of looking at reuse of the facility” if the DHL/UPS transaction goes forward.

“They’re going to be planning in the next couple of weeks a time where they join with me and actually come to the community and meet with the community’s leadership and tell them of what their plans are to provide federal assistance to the area,” Turner said.

Meanwhile, on June 5, a bipartisan group of legislators in Washington, D.C. sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting he examine the antitrust implications of a proposed partnership between DHL and UPS. The letter was signed by Turner, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and 17 legislators.

“What we’ve done is we’ve asked the Justice Department to look at this transaction as a step transaction, not merely as looking at the snapshot of DHL/UPS now consolidating, but as a total of DHL, Emery, Airborne and UPS,” said Turner.

Turner said just five years ago, Emery was operating in Dayton with 1,200 jobs, DHL was operating in Northern Kentucky with around 1,200 jobs and Airborne was operating in Wilmington.

“If you look today, UPS has Emery and DHL has acquired Airborne. The facility in Dayton sits idle. The facility in Cincinnati sits idle. And now UPS and DHL are talking about combining further. I just have to believe that if four years ago UPS and DHL had announced a strategic alliance that would have included acquiring and consolidating Emery, Airborne, DHL and UPS together, that people would have been very concerned that antitrust laws are being violated.”

Should the transaction between DHL and UPS take place, Turner said, “that is basically greater than 10,000 jobs that will be lost in southwest Ohio and all consolidated into UPS.”

Turner said Gov. Ted Strickland sent a representative to last Thursday’s meeting of legislators. Efforts of Ohio and federal officials are being coordinated, Turner said.

“The governor’s office is looking at what they can do through the Ohio Attorney General’s office and we’re trying to engage the U.S. Department of Justice,” Turner said.

Turner said he plans to attend a subcommittee meeting of the economic task force in Wilmington on Monday.