Do you think it's that easy? Not like Fred and company can't change policy midstream to placate drivers if turnover becomes an issue. Just like he's spent the last decade taking away, that can slowly (or quickly) reverse trends. Fred isn't locked into failing, but many of you may be long gone before he decides to do differently.
Here's where lack of experience actually working at Express exposes you. These people (FedEx upper management) think they have "The Plan", and because they are so effing smart, it's infallible. The stock is rising...that's all that matters. They have had "The Plan" brewing for years, and now they are implementing it. So far, so good, because the stockholders are happy and top execs have just seen ther portfolio rise 40% in value over a few months.
It's taken them years to think it up, and it will take them years to figure it out that they have effed-up. Instead of trying to reverse turnover by improving conditions and pay, they'll just keep hiring new employees, train them, and have them walk out the door 3-4 months later. Upper management only sees room for extracting more productivity out of the workers, so they will push harder and force even
more out the door.
Once the higher-productivity couriers are all gone, they'll be left with what they were willing to pay for...a disposable workforce that has zero loyalty, doesn't care about customer service, and is unwilling to do "grunt" work.
Fred is a dinosaur, and so is FedEx. They have no idea of how to deal with the new generation of workers and they're chasing away all of the lower level talent in management. Frontline management isn't the best and brightest...it's what they can get and/or marginal couriers looking for a way to get off the road.
Right now, it's "superstar" upper management jacking-up the stock prices with phony promises they won't be able to keep. Eventually, the stockholders and Wall St. will figure out they've been duped.
Fred is a Tea Partier. He hates "Big Government" and rails against regulation and "high" corporate tax rates, but uses government to his full advantage by owning politicians and then having them support legilsation that favors an anti-union, low wage Express, and a non-employee scams like Ground. Workers are like nuts and bolts in a machine to him, and we're easily replacable with cheap low-quality substitutes.
A "leader" that thinks in these terms will never recognize that his policies are a deterrent to attracting and retaining quality employees, both hourlies and lower management. He can keep the big boys up top and the pilots because they get top compensation. Everyone else is disposable. We are labor...nothing else.