Why dont we do somthing about it??!! This board is full of us that care and are also pissed off about how fed ex treats us. Im tired and only been with this company for less than 5 years.. Why cant we get Jimmy Hoffa Jr.. on our side?? All of you on here seem to have a lot of knowledge about this.. Is there any hope????
I ENCOURAGE you to go back over this forum's history - to at least mid-2009. You will see that this whole discussion took place back then. All this ground had been covered, you need to go to the effort to review all the history to get up to speed on what has happened (and not) in the past 3 years. There is a lot of "chit chat" that you'll need to filter out, but there is also a good chronicle of what has happened.
It is one of the reason's I post here, to establish a record.
Express doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of organizing. I was there, tried that, quit Express right before they tried to fire me on trumped up allegations of misconduct.
Fred paid the right people in D.C., there are WAY too many KoolAid drinkers still in Express, and they aren't going to sign representation cards.
For those who are not aware of what Express' RLA status gives them...
For a craft within Express to organize, the RLA stipulates that organization must be done on a NATIONAL basis, NOT local. This means for a particular craft to organize, 50%+1 of employees on a NATIONAL basis must first sign representation cards - then when a petition for an election is submitted, 50% +1 must vote to certify. There are enough KoolAid drinkers that post on this site to give one a decent picture of what obstacles are faced by the wage employees of Express - in any attempt to organize.
Organizing is the BEST option that the wage employees of Express have to protect their career, BUT...
IT WILL NOT EVER HAPPEN.
Your only real options at this point are to either make an exit plan from Express and get out - or to bend over and take what Fred has in store for you. If you are really unhappy about the direction Express is going, start making plans to get out - it is your best option at this point. The longer you hang around, the worse it is going to get. Before enough of the sheep out there realize that Fred is taking them to the shearing shed, it will already be too late, Dynamic ROADS will be fully implemented and Express will be bringing in part-timers to take routes.
I keep on reading on here about the "poor service level" of Ground... What the Express employees need to realize, is that the level of service that FedEx is getting out of the Ground "contractors" is the new normal for FedEx - it is good enough. Having the best is just too expensive for Fred and company, they only need good enough. In a couple of years, good enough for Express will be the caliber of the helper that is driving around a Ground truck today.
If one is really curious, pull up the Q&A session to the 2009 shareholders' meeting. A wage employee tried to engage Fred in why Express employees weren't being compensated fairly and why they shouldn't organize.
Fred - being the master debater he is - managed to turn the question back on the individual asking the question. The reason that Express isn't organized isn't his (Fred's) fault -
it is the fault of the wage employees, since they haven't chosen to organize.
Fred was absolutely CORRECT. It is the fault of the wage employees that they aren't organized. Admittedly, Fred has done everything in his power to prevent Express from organizing. However, if the employees REALLY wanted to organize, there is nothing that Express could do to stop it. The problem out there is that there are just enough KoolAid drinkers within Express (you've read their posting here) that any attempt to organize on a national basis is doomed to failure (Fred et al. knows this, it is all part of their game).
Pull up the history of that Ground terminal in Massachusetts that did manage to get an organizing petition (it never proceeded to an actual election). Ground is covered under NLRA, so they can organize on a local level.
If you didn't read about it here, you would've NEVER known that a Ground location had a petition for organizing - FedEx wants it that way!!!
FedEx sent in their union busting team, and about a week or two before the election was to be held, the Teamsters withdrew their petition to the NLRB for an election - they knew that they would lose. FedEx canned all the managers at that terminal (they were white, the employees were overwhelming "minority"), held daily meetings on why a union would be bad, brought in additional handlers to dilute the pool in time for the election. When the IBT did a headcount prior to the election, they knew they'd lose - so they pulled the petition. Again, pull up the posting history if you want to know more about this.
As far as the "Teamsters coming in to save the Express employees"...
Don't hold your breath. As far as they are concerned, the Express employees have to step up to the plate and do the grassroots organizing themselves. The Teamsters have lost way too much money on attempts to organize the Couriers of Express. Just like any "business", the Teamsters are in the business of organizing and representing labor in certain areas of work (truck driving being just one of them) - organizing has real COSTS that have to be covered. There has to be a realistic chance of recovering those costs, if a union is going to start an effort to organize in the first place.
The obstacles imposed by the RLA make the costs of attempting to organize Express just too prohibitive. This is why Fred has held on to his RLA status for Express at ALL COSTS - it makes any move by the Teamsters to attempt to organize ALL (a given craft within Express) at the same time cost prohibitive.
If Express had lost its RLA status back in 2009 or early 2010 (what I was hoping for back then), then the Teamsters WOULD'VE made a move into Express. They know which areas of the country are favorable for organizing, and they would've put forth the effort to organize those stations (they would've had a good chance to recover their costs). Once enough stations did certify union representation, then the IBT would've gone to Express and started to bargain for a contract. If Fred didn't negotiate, there would've been enough stations under the IBT to make a strike really hurt Express, it would've shut down the system. Fred pulled out all the stops to keep the RLA status - and WON.
Right now, the only craft within Express that Fred has to worry about even attempting to organize are the mechanics. However, he keeps their compensation just high enough, to keep enough mechanics from getting pissed off and signing union rep cards. You lost your split premiums - ask a mechanic what they lost earlier this year... (NOTHING).
As an Express Courier, you are both disposable and a liability to Express. You need to end any delusions you may have about having a career with Express, about Express "caring" for you, or Express even being honest with you. If you have read this forum long enough, you have read about how it is standard operating procedure for Express managers to lie, manipulate and deceive their employees - in order to accomplish their "operational goal". Your employer has no respect for you whatsoever, so you need to start making plans for yourself to either get the hell out - or to accept being a pawn in the greater plans of FedEx.
In the end, it is as simple as that. Leave or bendover, those are your remaining options (organizing was but a dream option for Express Couriers)...
