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FedEx and UPS spar over union rights
A FedEx truck is parked between two UPS trucks.
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Kai Ryssdal: Wall Street analysts usually look to FedEx and UPS as a sign of economic things to come. If they're moving more packages that's seen as a promising sign. Now, though, labor specialists are paying attention to a disagreement between this country's two biggest delivery services. And this question: Is FedEx an airline or a trucker? Marketplace's Dan Grech has more.
DAN GRECH: Congress is considering a change to labor law that would make it easier for FedEx Express drivers to unionize. FedEx currently is treated as an airline company, which is governed by the Railway Labor Act. Its industry rivals are treated as trucking companies governed by the National Labor Relations Act.
The new legislation would treat FedEx Express like a trucker. Ken Hall is a vice president at the Teamsters trucking union, which stands to gain new members from the change.
KEN HALL: We think it provides for a level playing field.
Rules on unionization are tougher in the airline industry, since local strikes can paralyze the national transportation system. Hall says that means FedEx drivers have historically had a harder time collective bargaining, as compared to UPS drivers.
HALL: UPS employees' hourly wage rates are significantly higher, plus their health-insurance benefits are better and cost them less.
FedEx has said its wages and benefits are competitive with those of UPS.
And a FedEx spokesman said that 85 percent of FedEx Express shipments are delivered by air, while 85 percent of UPS packages are by truck. FedEx says the legislation would tip the scales in favor of its arch rival.
Earlier this month, FedEx started a Web site called Brown Bailout. The site includes a video parody that features a UPS employee searching Capitol Hill for the bailout office.
The dispute has created strange bedfellows. Siding with the Teamsters in backing the proposed legislation is a collection of conservative groups including the Frontiers of Freedom. George Landrith is the nonprofit group's president. He says the legislation appeals to some conservatives because it will encourage fair competition in the transportation industry.
GEORGE LANDRITH: So now the question is will the law correct the accident of history and treat them the same. Or will it decide to treat one unfavorably and one favorably?
Landrith says he can think of few occasions over the past two decades that he's agreed with the Teamsters on anything.
I'm Dan Grech for Marketplace.
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If things are so bad at Fed Ex, why aren't the employees making a racket? I have been following this debacle and I think that one company shouldn't force another company to submit or commit to anything. A lot of people stand to make money out of this....who's thinking of the employees?...Ohh the last I heard UPS drivers were making $29.00/hr...and even non-drivers are making $17.00/hr...
UPS drivers now make 35.00 an hour, at least in the area I'm using as a comparison. I THINK it's the same across the U.S., although that doesn't seem reasonable because there's such an extreme variance in the cost of living from one place to another. However, comparing apples with apples, in that same area the average income for a middle class American 47 yrs. ago was about $6000 per yr. If you calculate 35.00 per hr. in computes to $72800. With overtime pay at time and a half it could be more but the same was true in 1964. If you were a self supporting adult 47 yrs. ago you may remember that a month's groceries was about $109. My house payment was 115. Now my son's house payment is over 1500 for approximately the same square footage house and groceries for actually l less person in the household are approximately 1500 per month. This is called inflation. It's cause? Fiat currency created by the Fed, which has never been audited. But I digress. Just those two items, which are significant expenses for a family have increased by 1300% to 1400%,. This does not even take into consideration the astronomical increase in health care, which is really illness care and gasoline, which distorts these figures even more Just to keep up with inflation the average wage should now be about 78,000 to 81,000. So the mean wage of a UPS driver has not even kept up with inflation. And the average non union wage earner isn't even remotely close. Try to get a blue collar job for more than $30,000. You'll be lucky to get that. Some are in the $50,000 bracket but that's considered high. No wage earner can maintain the same standard of living with these conditions in place. For you anti -union folks, do you actually WANT your lives to be controlled by the corporations? Is there corruption in union leadership? We all know the answer. Is there corruption in corporate leadership. Anyone with an IQ over 40 knows the answer to that. Profits of oil companies alone are higher than they've ever been, yet wages are constantly being reduced. It would be better to have NO corruption in anything but that's not going to happen. I'd rather get a little help for a decent wage that at least comes closer to keeping up with inflation than to put up with corporate corruption that is stealing the wealth of every American and robbing our children and grandchildren of a future.
For those that think the temesters are the savor, you should ask some of your ups drivers what happened to there retirement that the temesters spent and ups had to replace. the ones that want the teamters are the ones that want something for nothing just do your job.
The ones who want something for nothing are the ones who want to break into union shops without joining the union and get union wages that members are paying for and have worked for for yrs. I don't know how anyone who has ever seen a UPS driver work could call that something for nothing. Strange that you think the Teamsters stole retirement funds. I'll have to look into that. It's possible, but I have a feeling it's just the typical UPS propaganda like the one that was put out by the media about 18 (approx.) yrs. ago. Coached by UPS and without ever consulting ONE union member the media put out information that the "unreasonable" union was threatening to strike because they wanted UPS to give part timers full time jobs. Of course the whining UPS cry was "Why should we have to make part timers full time, then we don't need them full time?" Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But what the listening audiences didn't know and only a UPS employee would know was that UPS hired college students who could only work 20 hrs. a week to do exactly that: work 20 hrs., a week. Then , from the first week, they scheduled these "part time employees" to work 40 hrs a week and in many cases, even more than that. And these were NOT isolated cases. They were the general rule. So bottom line is they actually DID need them to work full time but they didn't want to PAY full time wages or benefits and didn't want them to be able to accumulate seniority as full timers. So they wanted to keep them CLASSIFIED as part timers. Half truths are lies.
It is impossible for fedex employees to unionize or ask for union representation as someone has asked about previously in this post. Under the Railway Act it is very difficult for employees to organize for a union vote or to be protect from retaliation from their employer. That is why fedex is fighting so hard to retain status as an airline. The are the only delivery/pickup company that is classified as such. This is strictly to keep their employees from having the right to organize a union.
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