The information campaign

[tworavens]

All it would take would be two employees reporting you to management that you handed them your flyer on company time or property and you're cooked. Believe me, there are employees that would love to garner favor by reporting a union activist. If you are going to distribute "information" do it without anyone's knowledge at your station. Place them in employees' "mailboxes" in your station, go around and place them in the trucks when you know you aren't being observed. If you are fulltime, come in early and place them. If you are part-time pick-up, hang around after the shift and place them in the trucks or boxes. If you place them in trucks do so after PSTs so that they don't get thrown away.

I admire your enthusiam but advise caution.

Don't forget also that color laser printers add encoded information to every printed page, which is invisible to the naked eye and can be used to trace which printer the page came from. Print your pages on a b/w printer, preferably at the UPS store.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

I got my pension statement in the mail the other day. It said I have a little over 7000 for a lump sum or a little over 70 a month for a monthly payout. I was thinking with this hefty retirement I could move to Barbados and buy a mansion! I have over 17 years with the company, maybe if I worked until I was about 172 I could afford to pay my rent on the FedEx portable pension plan. Even at the bottom of that there was a statement that said the amounts were subject to change based on the descretion of the employer. I guess "operational need" applies to the FedEx portable pension plan just like everything else at FedEx. What a freaking joke!!!!!!

Once again "Fedex 4 life", if you actually worked for the company you would know that there isn't a FedEx pension anymore. It's just another example of FedEx calling something a name that it isn't. I mean this in the most unsarcastic way that it can possible be stated, YOU ARE A JOKE FEDEX 4 LIFE, AND YOU LOOK MORE FAKE WITH EVERY STATEMENT THAT YOU POST!!!!!!!!

I keep hearing PPP PPP, but in reality it is "PPA", a portable pension account and it is much less misleading.

 

[MrFedEx]

I keep hearing PPP PPP, but in reality it is "PPA", a portable pension account and it is much less misleading.

FedEx named it the PPP and has since re-named it the PPA. No matter what you call it, it isn't a good deal.

 

[MrFedEx]

Just dont get caught handing them out

Why not? After all, "FedEx is not anti-union in any way". That's what Fred is always saying, isn't it? Why would he be so terrified of some informational flyers that would serve to wake-up a few thousand of his employees as to how they can never retire (at least from FedEx).

To even speak of the union has been enough to get one targeted for termination. Isn't that against the law? Oh, I'm sorry, the law doesn't apply to either Fred or FedEx.

 

[Ricochet1a]

I keep hearing PPP PPP, but in reality it is "PPA", a portable pension account and it is much less misleading.

The "Plan" is the set of rules that apply to ALL employees to determine what FedEx will place into each individual emplioyee's "Account".

Plan = instruction manual to deposit tiny amounts of cash

Account = individual balance of tiny amounts of cash.

None of us care what each other have in their account. It is the plan which applies to all that we talk about.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

The "Plan" is the set of rules that apply to ALL employees to determine what FedEx will place into each individual emplioyee's "Account".

Plan = instruction manual to deposit tiny amounts of cash

Account = individual balance of tiny amounts of cash.

None of us care what each other have in their account. It is the plan which applies to all that we talk about.

It is the "plan" that is misleading to me. It provides some sort of false hope for the future, at least to my eyes.

 

[Ricochet1a]

It is the "plan" that is misleading to me. It provides some sort of false hope for the future, at least to my eyes.

False hope is precisely what it is.

The best way of evaulating a retirement plan is to see who is placing money aside for an employee's retirement. In general, it takes about 15% of an employees annual gross to properly fund a retirement. Whether that comes from a DBPP or IRA or you name it, it takes about 15%.

FedEx is taking the approach that employees have to take an increased share of the burden to fully fund their personal retirement.

I'm sure all employees remember last February or so when their senior manager gave the pony show about the pension plans being changed. They were instructed to tell their employees to fully fund their 401(k)s to ensure maximum matching funds.

The PPP provides 5% of gross. The 401(k) will provide with full contribution about 8% of annual gross (employee deduction plus matching). This leaves a short fall of about 2% of gross. The important thing to remember is that under the traditional pension plan, the employer provided the actuarial 15% of an employee's annual gross, providing a FULL pension without employee contribution. With the PPP and 401(k), FedEx's contribution towards the necessary funding for a pension was cut in half. The extra percentage point or two late in a career is a drop in the bucket (for the sake of our resident shill).

To make matters worse, the 401(k) matching funds were suspended this year. No statement has been issued regarding any sort of "catch-up" of these missing funds.

Further compounding the issue is the pay freeze this year. For a mid-range full time Courier, this resulted in about a $2,250 shortfall in income this year (half that amount for a part-timer). This loss isn't confined to just this year, it will be compounded for every year the employee works. An employee that is making $38.000 (and should've made $40,250) will have that $2,250 missing from every year they work. For 2010, their payraise will be based on the $38,000, not the $40,250. They should be at $42,500 for 2010, not the 2% added to $38,000 ($38,760).

So with the 2009 pay freeze and the 2010 2%, a mid-range full time Courier will only make $38,760 in 2010 instead of the $42,500 (shortfall of $3,740). If the full payraise rates are restored in 2011 (don't hold your breath), the pay will be $41,085 instead of $45,000 if no pay freeze had been enacted for 2009 and only a 2% raise for 2010. I could continue the progression indefinately, but the point is that every full-time Courier is going to be shortchanged $2,250 this year, and close to $4,000 for each year after 2009. This can never be made up. This just adds insult to the injury of the Traditional Pension being pulled.

If one adds up the percentages in lost compensation (7.5% retirement and close to 8% in wages after this year), FedEx handed every employee a 15% reduction in their total compensation package. The amazing thing is that a majority of employees are still smiling and consuming all the KoolAid they can consume.

The shills can equivocate as much as they like, but they can't deny this fact: UPS is operating in the same environment as FedEx. I don't see any of their drivers taking a 15% reduction in their compensation levels this year - and every year here after. If FedEx had a union, NONE of this would be taking place. So if a FedEx employee asks how much are they losing for not being unionized, you can state about $4,000/yr for a full time employee and half that for a part-timer. This figure is only for what we have lost, NOT the differential in pay between FedEx and UPS. If you add that into the mix, it all goes up from there.

I know that I can't partake of the KoolAid when I know it would be costing me $4-7,000 a year as a full time employee.

For the sake of the shills.... 25,000 FTE Couriers times $7,000 = $175 million.

A drop in the bucket for FedEx with revenues approaching $20 Billion this year (about 1% of gross FedEx revenue).

 

[bbsam]

Ok, Ricochet. I am going to ask this question in the most only sincere curiosity. You have mentioned several times that you plan to leave the company. I have been repeatedly impressed with your posts and wonder what your aspirations beyond achieving the degree. If it is not too personal, what do you plan to do with the education and do in this economy how do you see the competition shaping up.

 

[Ricochet1a]

Ok, Ricochet. I am going to ask this question in the most only sincere curiosity. You have mentioned several times that you plan to leave the company. I have been repeatedly impressed with your posts and wonder what your aspirations beyond achieving the degree. If it is not too personal, what do you plan to do with the education and do in this economy how do you see the competition shaping up.

Thank you for the complement (that is how I read your statement).

Given the nature of what is happening in Express right now, giving any personal information like you requested could end up providing enough crumbs of information to FedEx management (district) to make my remaining time with Express a nightmare. I do my job, I do it professionally; but I'm not happy with the circumstances.

I actually get along with my local management rather well. I respect them, they respect me. They have an idea of how I feel, but I don't express what I think at work like I do on BC. One could call it some sort of a "truce". They leave me alone and I don't stoke the flames of discontent - wouldn't do much good at my location anyway, very anti-union location. However, that doesn't apply when I'm on my time and off company property...

In many ways, they (local mgt.) are in the same boat as I. The difference is that they already made the plunge into management while I held off sensing something wrong with the company. I'm glad I did. They all know FedEx has changed for the worse. Some have decided that they have "already sold their souls to Fred" and dispense KoolAid and others are making quiet preparations to leave when the economy improves. It is the ones that have made the decision to leave (locally and in MEM), that I get my information from. I place some trust in one group, and don't turn my back on the other (I'll let you figure which is which).

I do all of this out of principle. In the greater scheme of things, the money that I'm being "shafted" out of from FedEx isn't worth worrying about, I'll make it up in the future. For those who made FedEx a career, they won't make it up.

What drives me is the hypocracy of a company stating one thing publically and then doing the exact opposite to its employees while trying to keep a straight face about it. I know that even if FedEx gets classified under the NLRB, I'll never see a penny out of it. But knowing there are good people that made a decision years ago to give their all to a company, then have that company slowly pull the rug out from under them (smiling the entire time) drives me and many others to do what we can before departing.

I never thought that I'd ever be advocating for a union, not in all of my lifetime. Having worked at FedEx for the time I have, my eyes have been opened to the need of some sort of union to balance out what I see as predatory treatment of employees in the current economy, especially by FedEx. I've gained almost as much education experiencing FedEx as I have in my graduate program.

I describe my self as Libertarian politically, desiring goverment to say out of peoples' lives to the greatest extent possible (that includes the current health care debate). I have no delusions about unions and their political leanings. But what I do see is a situation that has deteriorated to the point where employees have no other choice but to resort to a union to offset the abuse of power that FedEx has engaged in.

If FedEx would've chosen to maintain the philosophy it possessed some 20 years ago, none of this would be necessary. FedEx started a gradual and what I and many others believe to be a deliberate change, about 10 years ago with the decision to expand outside of the core Express business model. There was nothing inherently wrong with expanding the business. What WAS wrong, was the seemingly simultaneous decision to begin to erode employee compensation to fund that expansion.

Many retired FedEx employees that have been out for more than 5 years don't have a good grasp of what is going on right now. They remember the FedEx they worked for and assume it still exists. When I try to tell someone that retired in the mid-90s about the current situation, they won't believe me. They see the same white trucks, the same CEO and the same uniforms they wore and insist that nothing could've changed. It has been a deliberate and planned process of change to transform FedEx from what it was to what they want it to be. That process of change is occurring at the expense of current and future employees and should be fought. Not because change is inherently bad, it is necessary. It is because the type of change that FedEx is engaging in is predatory to its employees.

 

[bbsam]

Thank-you. And yes, it was intended as a compliment.

 

[Ricochet1a]

Out of curiosity, I checked the payouts for someone who had 25 years of service in May 2008 (age 50), and was capped for the DBPP and drew under the PPP for 5 years. I compared this to if the traditional pension plan remained in effect. If the traditional plan had remained, their average high would continue to increase for those last 5 years, whereas with the cap, their average high was calculated in 2008 and not when this hypothetical employee retires in 2013 at the age of 55. Most think they are double dipping. I used the following assumptions:

Average high in 2008 = $48,000

Average high in 2013 = $55,000

Maximum PPP contribution for 2008-2013

PPP balance paid out as annuity for 20 years at 5.5% ROI with 0 balance at age 80 is $2,360 per year.

With the cap, this employee receives $24,000 from the DBPP (half average high 2008). The PPP has a balance of just under $28,600 in 2018. This will provide another $2,360 a year for a total of $26,360 a year pension.

If the Traditional Pension had remained in place with no PPP, the annual pension based upon half of average high as of 2013 would be $27,500.

The assumptions can be adjusted one way or another, but in the end, there is no double dipping going on. Even those that maxed out under the DBPP are at best staying even between the switch. I kind of suspected this before I calculated it, and the numbers proved it. With the average high being capped at 2008 levels, the PPP for these employees merely helps them from losing ground.

The employees which weren't maxed out in 2008 are steadily losing ground. A very rough linear function of percentage pension lost can be described as number of years of service as of May 2008 minus 25, times 2.5%. So if an employee had 10 years of service as of May 2008 and they put in a 25 year career, the percentage of loss of pension can be very roughly described as (10-25) * 2.5% = -37.5%. This employee will lose just over one-third of the amount they would've received under the traditional plan.

A new hire employee that puts in a 25 year career would lose (0-25) * 2.5% = -62.5%, or almost two-thirds the amount they would've received under the Traditional Plan.

 

[Artee]

Better yet, say something controversial at your next workgroup meeting like "We need a union", even if you don't mean it. See what happens.

Now that would be funny. Whats a workgroup meeting? I stopped going to those years ago.

 

[Artee]

Why would any company welcome the idea of employees discussing unions?

Hey now. You aren't supposed to be bringing logic into the discussion.

 

[Artee]

why wouldn't you support your fellow employees? You obviously have no idea what this job entails and what we put up with day in and day out.

I support my fellow employees and 95% say "friend" the unions. A couple old Flying Tiger guys say union yes, but that's about it.

 

[Artee]

I got my pension statement in the mail the other day. It said I have a little over 7000 for a lump sum or a little over 70 a month for a monthly payout. I was thinking with this hefty retirement I could move to Barbados and buy a mansion! I have over 17 years with the company, maybe if I worked until I was about 172 I could afford to pay my rent on the FedEx portable pension plan. Even at the bottom of that there was a statement that said the amounts were subject to change based on the descretion of the employer. I guess "operational need" applies to the FedEx portable pension plan just like everything else at FedEx. What a freaking joke!!!!!!

Once again "Fedex 4 life", if you actually worked for the company you would know that there isn't a FedEx pension anymore. It's just another example of FedEx calling something a name that it isn't. I mean this in the most unsarcastic way that it can possible be stated, YOU ARE A JOKE FEDEX 4 LIFE, AND YOU LOOK MORE FAKE WITH EVERY STATEMENT THAT YOU POST!!!!!!!!

Yep pension does suck now days. No two ways around that. One thing I learned as a small child is don't rely on other people. I am not counting on the FDX pension for my retirement. You better start boosting up your 401K and learn how to fend for yourself. Whatever I get from my pension is just going to be gravy....not something I plan to live on.

 

[Artee]

. Place them in employees' "mailboxes" in your station, go around and place them in the trucks when you know you aren't being observed. If you are fulltime, come in early and place them. If you are part-time pick-up, hang around after the shift and place them in the trucks or boxes. If you place them in trucks do so after PSTs so that they don't get thrown away.

Don't forget about the cameras FDX has hanging in the warehouse and in the yards. All they have to do is rewind the tape and see who is doing it. Thats how they found out who ran over the gate coming into the yard with their trailer when no one fessed up.

 

[olcc]

Hi Artee, thanks for trolling on in. We were all getting tired of FedEx 4 Life, so it's refreshing to have another irreverent voice here to distract us from a legitimate discussion. Keep posting five times is a row on the same thread and you'll have that post count up in no time.

And to clarify, no one is expecting free handouts from FedEx. We're only expecting them follow through on promises that were made. Gutting the pension, lengthening top-out times, suspending raises, increasing health care costs, and cutting the 401k match are all broken promises.

FedEx is an extremely profitable company. The recent "loss" was nothing more than a write-down for overpaying on the Kinko's brand years ago. It's a loss on paper. The greatest recession since WWII and this company still made money. They can afford to provide for their employees the same way the competition does. And if they would just do that (much like they did up until about 10 or fifteen years ago), a union wouldn't be necessary. The hourlies didn't share in any of the wealth during the boom and now we're taking all of the heat during the bust.

 

[MrFedEx]

Yes, Artee, I believe you when you say only 5% of us want a union and that we should all become "self reliant" and be happy that our pension went away. I'd say it's more like 75% of us say "friend" FedEx and Uncle Fred.

What a coincidence it is that scads of trolls like you show up here spreading your misinformation just as the RLA controversy heats up. It's kind of like the "protestors" that the insurance industry ships in to the health care debates that serve to confuse and confound those actually looking for some answers.

Keep posting, and you'll be exposed for what you are very quickly on this site.

 

[Artee]

Hi Artee, thanks for trolling on in. We were all getting tired of FedEx 4 Life, so it's refreshing to have another irreverent voice here to distract us from a legitimate discussion. Keep posting five times is a row on the same thread and you'll have that post count up in no time.

And to clarify, no one is expecting free handouts from FedEx. We're only expecting them follow through on promises that were made. Gutting the pension, lengthening top-out times, suspending raises, increasing health care costs, and cutting the 401k match are all broken promises.

FedEx is an extremely profitable company. The recent "loss" was nothing more than a write-down for overpaying on the Kinko's brand years ago. It's a loss on paper. The greatest recession since WWII and this company still made money. They can afford to provide for their employees the same way the competition does. And if they would just do that (much like they did up until about 10 or fifteen years ago), a union wouldn't be necessary. The hourlies didn't share in any of the wealth during the boom and now we're taking all of the heat during the bust.

Don't be naive. Promises were meant to be broken. How many people have said they would never cheat on their significant other. Stuff happens. Look out for #1 and don't expect ANY company to have your best interests in mind. Read something other than the FedEx forum on here and you will see a lot of UPS'ers bitching about a lot of the same stuff we do. Going union will not make all your troubles disappear. If I get killed on my run tonight I guarantee you someone else will be running it tomorrow night.

FDX doesn't give a crap about me and UPS could care less about their guys. Its a bottom line game and we are all expendable. I am a realist. If I don't like my pay and benefits I better get wise and get the hell out and better my position in life. Waiting for FDX to get all warm and fuzzy with me and give me everything I want and what I think I should expect is not going to happen. I am not here to complain as I enjoy my job, lead a good life in an upscale community and when I punch out I don't think about work until I go in the next day. Hopefully things will get better for you at FDX or maybe you can find a career change that suits you better and not have to spend so much time being consumed by all the negativity.

 

[MrFedEx]

Don't be naive. Promises were meant to be broken. How many people have said they would never cheat on their significant other. Stuff happens. Look out for #1 and don't expect ANY company to have your best interests in mind. Read something other than the FedEx forum on here and you will see a lot of UPS'ers bitching about a lot of the same stuff we do. Going union will not make all your troubles disappear. If I get killed on my run tonight I guarantee you someone else will be running it tomorrow night.

FDX doesn't give a crap about me and UPS could care less about their guys. Its a bottom line game and we are all expendable. I am a realist. If I don't like my pay and benefits I better get wise and get the hell out and better my position in life. Waiting for FDX to get all warm and fuzzy with me and give me everything I want and what I think I should expect is not going to happen. I am not here to complain as I enjoy my job, lead a good life in an upscale community and when I punch out I don't think about work until I go in the next day. Hopefully things will get better for you at FDX or maybe you can find a career change that suits you better and not have to spend so much time being consumed by all the negativity.

Instead of waiting for FedEx to get "all warm and fuzzy", why don't we raise hell until we get our pension back and better wages? Apparently you just like to bend over and take whatever Fred dishes out. Some of us aren't so compliant. Please spare us the Libertarian/Conservative troll talking points and continue being Fred's little subservient houseboy/girl. I truly doubt you really work there. Your posts reek with the stench of a FedEx shill.