It has done what exactly, but add "healing to the hurt"? I have been here to see you and Ricochet, Broke and others advocating for this and imploring for that and in the end what truly has been accomplished? Hope? Really? What ailments have been addressed at the core? Don't get me wrong. I like to "blow off steam" as much as the next, but you need to realize the limits to that therapy. How many time has the FAA thing been just a matter of time? How many times has the "Ground scam" been going down? When was Sir Oberstar the Galant supposed to ride forth to liberating conquest? When you add it up, the "wins" are phantoms of a hope that truly never was.
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No false expectations here. I've always realized that fighting "King Frederick" would be an uphill battle. Perhaps "Sir Oberstar" was a knight that wasn't up to the task, and we all know that Obama has been a simpering weakling. I'm not even going to head down the Hoffa path. It's pretty difficult to fight Big Money and a political structure all too happy to wallow in it and screw the little guy over.
The bottom line is that we've lost the battle... not the war. Every day, an increasing number of FedEx employees are figuring it out, and that's a victory in and of itself. The more FedEx pushes, the more employees will push back. Far fewer are willing to give the extra effort that FedEx demands for so little in return. Crap service eventually pays a dividend of customers who will go elsewhere...probably to UPS.
And the Ground deal isn't over yet. I'll grant you that the ISP model seems to be passing the stink test for legality so far. Once the state AG's get their payoff the incentive to go after FedEx may be reduced..for now. I recently read an article on "independent contractors" in a Transportation Industry magazine that was very illluminating. You probably wouldn't enjoy it because it revealed the weakness of the ISP model and cited other companies which had lost huge lawsuits in spite of having
more stringent safeguards than FedEx in terms of protecting their "contractors". What happens if the ISP model goes down in flames?
FedEx Express is investing more than ever in aircraft and is starting to restructure it's vehicle fleet. Perhaps it's because they plan on shifting larger packages to Ground, or maybe the market has evolved due to the slack economy....my crystal ball doesn't look that far into the future yet. But no matter what happens there's one thing you can count on, and that's the
fact that Fred S and FedEx don't give a crap about you or your business beyond your ability to provide them a profit. If they could outsource your function and save a penny, they'd toss you like used toilet paper in a second. That's just "good business", and I know you're OK with that, good little capitalist tool that you are.
Don't forget that the RLA voting regs have been liberalized too. Maybe the Teamsters are waiting for the Hail Mary play that probably isn't coming and most likely wouldn't work anyway. Fine. Once they finally pull their collective heads out of you-know-where, maybe they'll get to work on organizing FedEx under the RLA. Maybe that's giving them far too much credit. Again, I don't know for certain.
At my station, we eff them at every opportunity, and others are doing the same thing when they can. More lawsuits, more accidents, indifferent employees, and lower productivity will all take their toll on efficiency and profit. WalMart employees are incapable of FedEx standards, but if Fred wants to keep trying, there will be plenty of us doing our best to stop him.
Let me know when Fred effs you over, because it
will happen. It's how he does business.