I honestly never felt taken advantage of at FedEx. I spent a week in Sommerset, NJ. For DG and spill clean up training. It was honestly a paid vacation with travel time paid as well.
The reason the Express drivers are taking split's unpaid obviously is because there is not enough work for them to do prior to pick ups. There not being told to do more then they did in the past in less time resulting in forced splits. I've two friends who no longer speak since they were at each other trying to get the work to stay working all day.
I was a cover while at Fedex. Though my usual route to cover since the driver at the time as in LEAP (prior to ASPIRE) and was almost through it and in building quite a bit. Covered the area of almost 4 of our UPS routes, was about 200+ miles and 45 del not including pick ups. I wore shorts the entire winter covering ski resorts since I was in the vehicle driving more then I was delivering.
Now on these same rural routes at UPS the furthest one out does 170 miles and 90 del stops. The others all run about the same del stop some increasing more as the miles decrease.
I can honestly say that at FedEx I rarely ever felt like I could not get my lunch break in at any point of the day. I rarely ever feel like I can get it in at UPS. Heck at FedEx I brought an hour egg timer with me to sleep on my lunches.
You may cover more area per route but your miles are not nearly as high as you'd expect when comparing like routes. We are covering many more miles of driving in less territory. Most of these miles are at 25 to 35 mph. Not 45 to 65. Doing more deliveries - usually with much more volume on both the pick up and delivery side.
You'll always find a FedEx route that could be compared to a UPS one but both you and I know it's not near close on a whole.
I can say honestly from experience in my area that I'm not worth the $32+ I'll be making at the end of this contract and there is no way a FedEx courier is worth anywhere near that for the job they do regionally here.
Everyone would like more money but at $22 top rate plus or minus for georaphic discrepencies your well paid. I think your progression does suck and take way too long but......UPS is increasingly trying to lengthen ours as well.
Carefull what you wish for - more money will in turn require more out of the drivers. You think your all being UPS'd now wait till then.
I'm not kidding when I say I sometimes miss the days of FedEx. I never went home feeling beat and broken.