Naive people

[DRAisawesome]

I have this argument all the time with union people. How would you like it? People next to you at work making the same money while doing less work.

My response. I'm an 8 yr employee at express and I make 50% less than the person next to me while doing more work. Which would you prefer?

Also they complain about dues. If one left and came to fedex they would gladly go back and probably double their dues to have what union protection, pension, wage scales ect.

Yes people FedEx doesn't have a pay scale or awesome bernifits. It's reality and as long as we couriers are split apart like a two tiered wage system it will not change. There is no longer any team effort or collaboration. Everyone is yelling at each other and fun to watch unravel and management doesn't care.

 

[bbsam]

Doesn't sound like you're having alot of fun watching it unravel.

 

[Cactus]

Yeah we have a guy that's anti-union but complains daily about being stuck at midrange pay.

 

[dezguy]

re union dues. I'm paying a little over $20 a week for my benefits. UPS pays around $90 a month for their union dues. If I were working for UPS, paying union dues, I'd still come out ahead compared to working at FedEx.

You're absolutely right about doing more work for less money. All the high seniority guys at my station have the gravy routes, work 8 hours on the dot and have the easy jobs on the sort, as they should given they have the time in. But when the guy next to them is working harder for over $10/hour less, there is a big problem.

 

[MrFedEx]

Yeah we have a guy that's anti-union but complains daily about being stuck at midrange pay.

Have you ever heard of vantexan?

 

[Jayhawk]

re union dues. I'm paying a little over $20 a week for my benefits. UPS pays around $90 a month for their union dues. If I were working for UPS, paying union dues, I'd still come out ahead compared to working at FedEx.

You're absolutely right about doing more work for less money. All the high seniority guys at my station have the gravy routes, work 8 hours on the dot and have the easy jobs on the sort, as they should given they have the time in. But when the guy next to them is working harder for over $10/hour less, there is a big problem.

I disagree with the statement that senior couriers should have easy jobs because they have the time in. Thats a major problem with this company in my opinion. The majority of the senior couriers at my station have this "earned it" attitude. These guys complain about how bad they have it but don't do a damn thing day after day. Any other employer would fire them. This company needs reward the people that actually work. The only thing these senior employees earn after years of service is more vacation time.

 

[MrFedEx]

that

I disagree with the statement that senior couriers should have easy jobs because they have the time in. Thats a major problem with this company in my opinion. The majority of the senior couriers at my station have this "earned it" attitude. These guys complain about how bad they have it but don't do a damn thing day after day. Any other employer would fire them. This company needs reward the people that actually work. The only thing these senior employees earn after years of service is more vacation time.

This is a great example of the Smith "divide and conquer" strategy at work. The senior couriers certainly have it better than everyone else, but overall, they have also been horribly screwed. Bottom line: Why should ANYONE work hard for Frederick W. Smith?

If you are making $17 per hour instead of the $25 per hour that the senior people are making, it's not on them, it's on Smith. They didn't make the choices...he did. They just started sooner than you did, and when FedEx was still a decent place to work. They didn't kill the pension, make the stupid rules or create our wonderful benefits plan(s) that suck like a Hoover...Fred did. If you're looking for someone to hate-on, turn toward Memphis, drop your pants, and show Fred the brown eye of scorn. Do nothing but the absolute minimum for the greedy rat bastard.

Instead of bitching about "lazy" senior couriers...do less.

 

[vantexan]

Have you ever heard of vantexan?

Yeah, yeah. Same ol' song and dance. I was 100% for a union but was against advocating for pay and benefits equal to UPS because the numbers just weren't there to support it. That never stopped you however. And your partner in crime R1a was getting people all ginned up with talk of "secret" documents that purportedly described a master plan to make couriers' lives a living hell. FedEx has alot to answer for but all that baloney never really came true. And yet he kept pushing people to leave in an extremely bad economy before they got totally screwed by the company. Well as a retiree I'll say this. Do whatever you can to take care of you and your's in retirement. There will come a day where you can't work, and all the toys you spent money on won't mean much when you can't make ends meet at 70. All the bitching and moaning about not having the "good life" now pales in comparison to being old and decrepit and having to skip meals. It's dog eat dog out there with these corporations, either move up or move out to something better. If you spend your entire working life railing against the system for not providing a better life for you instead of doing what it takes to get a better life you have no one else to blame but yourself. And if you do better while not helping others to do better you are part of the problem. Amen.

 

[!Retired!]

People next to you at work making the same money while doing less work.

Kind of sounds like UPS......don't it? Do you seriously think EVERY UPS driver does the same amount of work?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Kind of sounds like UPS......don't it? Do you seriously think EVERY UPS driver does the same amount of work?

Unions promote mediocrity.

 

[Serf]

If you are making $17 per hour instead of the $25 per hour that the senior people are making, it's not on them, it's on Smith. They didn't make the choices...he did

Sad but true. I find it bizarre that the guys I talk with that came in before 1999 are all topped out. The guys shortly that after are all in the 23 to 24 and change range. And the guys in the last 5 years are all $1.00 within what they were hired in at ($17.22)

In my experience, I have not seen anything close to this. Pathetic? Perhaps. Unfair? OK. I am just mesmerized by the audacity. In the service you even get mandatory promotions and raises in your first 4 ranks, a longevity bonus after 2 years "time in grade". At the railroad which had a quasi union. You still went from $18 to $25.00 over the course of 4 years. And were paid for 40 hours, even if you didn't work 40 that week. At the prison I worked at; salary increases over the course over 30 months. Just to pale in comparison. IF FedEx turns a profit in the fiscal quarter or year you get a flat 2%. Just by that math alone, that's .34 cents a year. Assuming you even got the 2% annually it would take 25 years to even sniff top pay. If the company withheld raises for any period of time, you wipe out that possibility entirely. But it doesn't really matter any way. Because the cost of living and inflation are much higher than the 2% you get.

 

[MrFedEx]

Unions promote mediocrity.

OK, so you must be mediocre, right?

 

[MrFedEx]

Yeah, yeah. Same ol' song and dance. I was 100% for a union but was against advocating for pay and benefits equal to UPS because the numbers just weren't there to support it. That never stopped you however. And your partner in crime R1a was getting people all ginned up with talk of "secret" documents that purportedly described a master plan to make couriers' lives a living hell. FedEx has alot to answer for but all that baloney never really came true. And yet he kept pushing people to leave in an extremely bad economy before they got totally screwed by the company. Well as a retiree I'll say this. Do whatever you can to take care of you and your's in retirement. There will come a day where you can't work, and all the toys you spent money on won't mean much when you can't make ends meet at 70. All the bitching and moaning about not having the "good life" now pales in comparison to being old and decrepit and having to skip meals. It's dog eat dog out there with these corporations, either move up or move out to something better. If you spend your entire working life railing against the system for not providing a better life for you instead of doing what it takes to get a better life you have no one else to blame but yourself. And if you do better while not helping others to do better you are part of the problem. Amen.

Making courier's lives a living hell? I'd say we're there, buddy. How's that "generous" FEC retirement working for you now that you will be here in the US instead of Mexico? And me? I've always worked on the side to supplement both my savings and my income. A real bootstrapper.

 

[vantexan]

Making courier's lives a living hell? I'd say we're there, buddy. How's that "generous" FEC retirement working for you now that you will be here in the US instead of Mexico? And me? I've always worked on the side to supplement both my savings and my income. A real bootstrapper.

Really? So FedEx is making you work all day with a 5 hr split in the middle like R1a said? As for me, I have my own thing going that's working out well. I'd have stayed in Mexico if it weren't. Again, anyone relying on FedEx to give them a good life will be disappointed. What you get out of life depends on you. FedEx just sees you as an object to exploit, and all their talk of caring means little compared to their actions. Come on MFE, you don't pick up garbage or work in a sewer. The company demands alot and gives little but that's not a living hell compared to the predictions you and R1a made.

 

[FUFred]

I have this argument all the time with union people. How would you like it? People next to you at work making the same money while doing less work.

My response. I'm an 8 yr employee at express and I make 50% less than the person next to me while doing more work. Which would you prefer?

Also they complain about dues. If one left and came to fedex they would gladly go back and probably double their dues to have what union protection, pension, wage scales ect.

Yes people FedEx doesn't have a pay scale or awesome bernifits. It's reality and as long as we couriers are split apart like a two tiered wage system it will not change. There is no longer any team effort or collaboration. Everyone is yelling at each other and fun to watch unravel and management doesn't care.

Back at my days at express, many moons ago. I was running a route next to a new swing driver and we had lunch that day. He was a year into driving, but 4 months into swinging. I was just finishing my 8th year at express and had about 5 years into swinging, hey…. Lol

Anyways, he talked about making the “big bucks” like I do one day. I laughed, told him I wouldn't be surprised if his hourly rate was more than mine. I told him I would happily tell him what I made an hour, I did, and he did the same. I was at 17.97 an hour with swing difference of $0.30 an hour included, he gave me a black look, then told me I was lying. He said, “I make $17.96 an hour, why do you only make a penny more an hour than me?” I told him to ask his manager. I had the same conversation many times with new hires, all surprised they made about the same, a few made more than me. MGT never would tell you why.

 

[hypo hanna]

I disagree with the statement that senior couriers should have easy jobs because they have the time in. Thats a major problem with this company in my opinion. The majority of the senior couriers at my station have this "earned it" attitude. These guys complain about how bad they have it but don't do a damn thing day after day. Any other employer would fire them. This company needs reward the people that actually work. The only thing these senior employees earn after years of service is more vacation time.

There will always be softer routes at every station. Those senior drivers have been around long enough to both recognize and then bid on them when they come open. Once on those routes, they don't usually leave them until they have to.
As to helping out other routes, new hires etc, why would they? Doing anything extra at fedex only benefits fred and company. There isn't anything in it for the employee and those older drivers have been around long enough to know that.
The only entitlements I'm afforded after 30 years are bidding on routes and vacations.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

OK, so you must be mediocre, right?

I am underemployed .

 

[Jayhawk]

that

This is a great example of the Smith "divide and conquer" strategy at work. The senior couriers certainly have it better than everyone else, but overall, they have also been horribly screwed. Bottom line: Why should ANYONE work hard for Frederick W. Smith?

If you are making $17 per hour instead of the $25 per hour that the senior people are making, it's not on them, it's on Smith. They didn't make the choices...he did. They just started sooner than you did, and when FedEx was still a decent place to work. They didn't kill the pension, make the stupid rules or create our wonderful benefits plan(s) that suck like a Hoover...Fred did. If you're looking for someone to hate-on, turn toward Memphis, drop your pants, and show Fred the brown eye of scorn. Do nothing but the absolute minimum for the greedy rat bastard.

Instead of bitching about "lazy" senior couriers...do less.

I'm not "Bitching" I'm pointing out what goes on at my station. I work hard because thats what people with any pride do. You are giving the senior people way too much credit. They aren't lazy to get at smith the are lazy because they have alway been and will always be. Hell, these guys have no complaints. They think they have the world by the balls.

 

[MrFedEx]

I'm not "Bitching" I'm pointing out what goes on at my station. I work hard because thats what people with any pride do. You are giving the senior people way too much credit. They aren't lazy to get at smith the are lazy because they have alway been and will always be. Hell, these guys have no complaints. They think they have the world by the balls.

You don't have a long-term point of reference. Put your work ethic away, because you are laboring for a company that doesn't appreciate it. Nobody who is an hourly at FedEx "has the world by the balls". In reality, Fred has yours in a Vise-Grip, and you're dumb enough to keep working hard for him as he clamps them down tighter. Get a clue...WAD.

 

[Route 66]

I'm not "Bitching" I'm pointing out what goes on at my station. I work hard because thats what people with any pride do. You are giving the senior people way too much credit. They aren't lazy to get at smith the are lazy because they have alway been and will always be. Hell, these guys have no complaints. They think they have the world by the balls.

Then the senior people at your station are seriously delusional. They're probably better off feeling that way though. I wish I could, but unfortunately I'm living in the real world here.

But how can you be so sure the senior guys at your station have always been lazy if you weren't around to observe?..I'm willing to wager that most, if not all of them, were real go-getters back in the day....until they finally saw where all their efforts were getting them. I think they'd be nuts to keep willingly busting their humps after all these years.

As has been noted previously, not all routes are created equal. Why shouldn't the seniors be allowed first dibs on those routes without being branded as "lazy"? ....because they're making more $?. It's not that they're OVERPAID for the work they're doing, it's that you are grossly UNDERPAID for what you are doing. And that's 100% Fredward and Co's fault - not that of the senior employees.

I'm finding the assertion that today's crop of younger couriers coming aboard somehow have a stronger work ethic than the old guard. I just don't think so.