I do not believe UPS drivers are overpaid. I do not believe district level management are overpaid. I do not believe BD people are overpaid. Since I work on a district level, I have nothing to say about region or corporate level management work or pay because I have nothing to compare. I am not management, I am an admin that happens to work under BD, although I have worked in a few other departments in my 24 years as a UPSer. I see how hard BD folks are worked, not that I'm taking hard work credit away from a driver. However, I do get tired of BD getting blamed for everything that goes wrong at UPS by people who work in operations.
You asked about price difference between UPS and FDX. UPS overhead is more than FDX, at least partly due to the pay difference in the drivers. Employee benefits are paid by UPS, while FDX hires sub-contractors, so there is no benefit paid out. Sub-contractors have to fix their own trucks, UPS fixes ours, which again is another cost. I am sure there are many other factors that contribute towards the differences in UPS price verses FDX price.
FDX does NOT offer a better service, which includes BD work, as well as work done by other UPSers in other departments.
Operations needs to realize they would not have volume to pickup if it wasn't for BD. Operations is only a piece of the pie, BD is another slice and other departments have a slice, as well, which makes UPS what it is.