This is very much the case with FedEx. Having worked for many corporations and having been in the military, I can say FedEx has a culture of secrecy and misinformation when it comes to its hourly employees. Most employees in major corporations have a clear view of what that corporation does on a nationwide basis. They have regular communication with fellow employees in different operating locations and are able to get a decent picture of how the corporation operates, along with a picture of how competing corporations operate (it is in employees best interest to know this, since opportunity usually presents itself from a competitor). FedEx hourly employees don't know how their nearby stations are managed, or how different operating divisions are run (witness FDX4Life not knowing what an FDR is). FedEx is a collection of almost 1000 operating locations across the US (ramps, stations and hubs), with the hourly employees that haven't transferred having not a clue as to how those other 1000 locations operate. Their only sources of information are what corporate decides to tell them (Frontline
) or what their managers decide to tell them. Since corporate is actively trying to deceive employees, FedEx hourly employees don't really have a clue as to how bad they are getting it.
With FedEx, there is absolutely no opportunity for employees to jump ship. A Courier can't prepare a resume and try to work for another company doing the same line of work and get paid better. They would go to the bottom of the seniority listing, and have to work their way back up. In other words, not an option. This is what keeps most FedEx employees trapped within FedEx, there is no other viable option to change jobs without having to go to the bottom of "seniority". In white collar jobs, employees are constantly updating their resume, sending it out whenever an opportunity makes itself known. If a better offer comes along, they jump ship to greener pastures. This means that white collar employees tend to be paid higher than blue collar employees of comparable levels of responsibility. The employers have to compete on the basis of salary all the time, lest they lose their workforce.
There is only one option available to blue collar employees to ensure they have some bargaining position when it comes to their compensation. They can't send out resumes and attempt to get better terms of employment with another company doing the same line of work, the "system" isn't geared that way. They have to form an union and engage in collective bargaining to ensure they have the same levels of compensation as a white collar employee would have that possesses comparable levels of responsibility in their work. This is the ONLY option employees have that operate in a company (or career) that uses seniority as a method of ranking employees that perform identical job functions. This is why that old FedEx mantra of "there's the door, if you don't like your job, walk through it", is a red herring. There is no option for an employee that has made a career with FedEx. Once they made that choice, they're stuck. The option is to have a leveled playing field with FedEx, and taking away the RLA status from FedEx for non-aircraft related employees.
