northbound
Well-Known Member
My drivers are all employees. I am an employee. I don't need a court to tell me that. My co workers and I all work for a company who contracts with FXG.
Doomsday Clock
- Thread starter vantexan
- Start date
My drivers are all employees. I am an employee. I don't need a court to tell me that. My co workers and I all work for a company who contracts with FXG.
northbound
Well-Known Member
that's what I thought. Cactus seems to KNOW differently.
True. In fact my accountants just provided verification of that.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Do I hate Fred? Yes, most certainly. Do I hate Ground? Yes, I do. I disparage everything about Ground because it was a scam from the get-go and remains so to this day. When it was RPS, I remember asking the contractor/drivers what they were clearing. Most said around $20-$25,000, and almost every one of them was looking elsewhere. This is exactly the type of operation Fred S was seeking. An established ground trucking network, and drivers who cleared almost nothing...despite working around 60 hours per week.
Enter FedEx Ground, which was just RPS with a new logo at first. A lot of the same drivers getting ripped-off and then getting out as soon as they figured-out Smith wasn't any better than RPS. Massive turnover, and routes and vehicle available at fire sale prices. Add-in the new scam factor that FedEx insists on selling you a truck and managing you more tightly than before.
Eventually, Uncle Fred sweetens the pot somewhat, and contractors can actually eke out a living. Multiple contractors start doing all right, but the drivers still get the shaft. Why? Because they have to in order for the plan to work. Fred can share a little more with the contractors, but once it trickles down to the driver level...no way. That raises package prices and lowers profits. Nope, the drivers have to be making almost nothing in order for the magic to happen.
Ground wins the legal battles in court that create the ISP model, and it begins to grow as FedEx dumps millions into building ground infrastructure. Fred sees that he can divert former Express freight to the new low-cost scam division, so he starts the process of the switchover, eventually building to where we are today, with Ground making big money, and driving down wages in the rest of the industry, where other companies still pay living wages and provide benefits.
You brag about stealing my lunch, and you're right...I don't like it. But what I like even less is the fact that Fred thinks I'm worth less because you can con some dope into driving your truck for half what I make. His special RLA status and big time political influence ensure that there's little I can do about being "devalued".
My value hasn't gone down a penny, but in Fred's mind it has because he equates what your drivers do with what an Express courier does, and the similarities end where it is established that both parties deliver packages. Your scam drives down wages, guts the middle class, and lowers expectations in an industry that used to pay solid money and good benefits to intelligent, skilled workers.
Ground drivers, in general, are neither skilled nor intelligent, at least in comparison to Express couriers. That is rapidly changing at Fred fills Express with DRA Ground-inspired clones who are worthless at Express.
Congratulations at being part of a huge scheme that defrauds taxpayers, kills middle class jobs, and devalues transportation workers as a whole.
Bravo Zulu!!
northbound
Well-Known Member
Giggle... MFE you stooge
And that was the most lucid, direct, honest description I've seen here. FedEx gutted our pensions to build up Ground. They've slowed pay progression to a trickle. I'm thankful that I'm as old as I am because there's no future at Express. We just exist for their benefit until we can leave. Why am I not taking the SFA? Because they used to ask on the SFA if we believed that working for FedEx would lead to the kind of future we want. It's all been one manipulative sham. And has been for quite awhile, we just didn't know it because we believed in the company. Hey, you guys have your big houses, your fat bank accounts, your toys, your women. Hope it was worth all the lying and cheating to get there. But hey, y'all have the business world thinking you are brilliant, even have the environmentalists thinking you care. You take care of everyone but the people who've given their lives to make you successful. We know better, don't we?
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Giggle...you are Fred's useful idiot. What kind of jobs does Ground create? Crap jobs. You know, the ones Southern governors and Libertarians point to with pride when they say that they have "created" jobs in their states. You, and your fellow contractors/ISPs are the front men for this scam, included so Fred can point at you and call you a "business partner" and an example of entrepreneurship and private Ground enterprise. You are the means by which he justifies a taxpayer-subsidized workforce and gets to call himself a "job creator". In other words, you are just props for what is really going on behind the scenes, which is Fredex Ground, not bbsam Ground or northbound Ground.
Ground jobs are a route to nowhere, because they don't pay enough to allow employees to enter the middle class or rise into entrepreneurship. How many of your drivers could actually afford to buy into Ground on what you pay them? None. Zero. I pay for their medical and food stamps out of my diminished check, as do all of the rest of us struggling to stay in the middle class. You, and your employees are an albatross around our necks, just so poor old Fred can manage to eke-out a few billion in profits every year. Boo hoo!!
Like others, I can hardly wait for the day when the courts call BS on Fred and this charade. You know, all Mr. Smith did was slavishly copy the UPS Ground system, except for one tiny detail....the workers. He gets to pay them, what, $25,000 or so per year when UPS pays $75,000 plus benefits? And where does all that extra profit go (except for a bit for you)? Right into Fredward's fat wallet.
So, please go on deluding yourself that you are creating jobs, an example of the free market, and an ethical employer...you are none of that. You are, however, a stooge for Frederick W. Smith, and a damned good one.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
You are not an employee, you are a vendor.
he is an employee of his corporation.
Cactus
Just telling it like it is
Ooooh! Your accountants! Well that makes all in the world right then, huh?
Your people are NOT employees or they'd all be unionized by now (No RLA hurdles.) You two are just some BS artists happy to go along with the phassad of being business owners with this scam. So don't BS us and don't BS yourself.
I've seen 3 dollar bills more real than this ISP crap.
So why don't you get on over here and jam me up by organizing my drivers?
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Yep, he totally gutted our pensions....totally without cause. This is the kind of "businessman" Fred is. FedEx sent out the talking heads to tell us stupid employees that Fred was killing the pension in order to save it. "You see, those pesky ERISA laws are forcing us to fully fund our pension plans, so in order to do that we need to kill the Traditional Plan". All BS. FedEx could have easily afforded to keep the Traditional Plan, which was hardly generous, but much better than the Pretend Pension Plan (PPP) we have now.
Fred saved himself a bundle, by playing-off the pension mess the passenger airlines were experiencing at this time (remember, we're an "airline" too). They were losing money, while FedEx was raking it in big time. About this same time, Fred was buying-up companies. Hey, what a great place to both save and obtain some cash....The First National Employee Pension Plan Bank. He kills two birds with one stone, eliminating the retirement plan and freeing-up additional investment capital at the same time.
I still remember the required videos telling us that eliminating the pension was for us. God, what huge brass balls that one took, and yet, the believers still believed.
Fred, what a guy.
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me
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Maybe we have a reason?
thedownhillEXPRESS
Well-Known Member
