WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following is a statement from Change to Win Chair Anna Burger regarding recent speculation that union-busting FedEx CEO Fred Smith is on presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s short list for vice-presidential picks.

“Recent reports that FedEx CEO Fred Smith is being considered by John McCain as a potential vice-presidential pick are beyond disturbing. As a well-known lifelong union buster, Smith has a disgraceful record of stripping workers of their most basic rights to organize and fight for a living wage. It is disheartening, although not surprising, that John McCain would consider picking such a notorious enemy of hard working men and women to be his running mate.

“In the 35 years that Fred Smith has been the CEO of FedEx he has repeatedly fought against workers joining together to have a voice on the job, openly stating that he ‘doesn’t intend to recognize any unions at Federal Express.’ Less than 2% of the 200,000 American workers at FedEx are in a union. In contrast, UPS unionized workers make nearly 30 percent more than they non-union counterparts at FedEx. Despite organizing efforts, FedEx has filed appeal after appeal to deny their workers the right to bargain collectively, and has sought national legislation to thwart union organizing.

“Americans have already suffered through seven years of a White House that places corporate interests before the interests of America’s working families and we’ve seen the results – millions of homeowners facing foreclosure, gas prices at record levels, and skyrocketing health care costs. Workers cannot afford another lobbyist-dominated administration. A vice-president Fred Smith would be bad for America, and bad for workers. Working families need leadership in the White House that will help them reclaim the American Dream, not a third Bush term.”

About Change to Win
Change to Win is a six million member partnership of seven unions founded in 2005 to represent workers in the industries and occupations of the 21st century economy. Change to Win committed to restoring the American Dream for a new generation of workers – wages that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement, and the opportunity for the future. The seven affiliated unions are: Service Employees International Union, UNITE HERE, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Laborers’ International Union of North America, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and United Farm Workers of America.

FedEx Home Delivery has always used contract drivers, operating their own vehicles (with FedEx logos), to make deliveries. Early on, however, some drivers challenged the contractor model, claiming that they were, in reality, employees of the company, and entitled to organize, and bargain collectively with the company.

The controversy intensified in February 2006, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that drivers at a Massachusetts FedEx facility were entitled to organize. From the Boston Globe:

“What basically was decided here is that FedEx exercises very substantial control over the employees and the way they perform their jobs,” said Bob Redbord , deputy regional attorney at the Boston NLRB office. Redbord said the drivers work to FedEx schedules and follow FedEx driving and delivery guidelines.”

The drivers subsequently voted in the Teamsters as their bargaining agent. While FedEx has said it will challenge the vote, it has also tried another tactic- making nice. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Fedex

“recently began stationing 18 contractor “advocates,” some pulled from the ranks of contract drivers, across North America. The company says they are responsible for helping drivers increase their shipment volumes, solve problems they might have with management, and other duties. The company also is creating an executive position in charge of contractor relations, reporting directly to the head of the ground unit. FedEx also has increased fuel subsidies to drivers who operate multiple trucks and is eliminating some fines on drivers resulting from customer claims of failed deliveries.

The issue isn’t limited to Massachusetts- according to Traffic World:

The union effort is part of a larger campaign FedEx is facing over the status of some 15,000 FedEx Ground drivers. The company is fighting nearly 30 lawsuits around the country from drivers who say they are illegally denied classification as employees, leaving them without benefits. A California judge last month reaffirmed his earlier ruling in a class action case that drivers who drive single routes should be classified as employees. Several state labor boards also have taken after the FedEx Ground model, saying it circumvents taxes.

One of our customers is shocked when one of his customers reveals shocking news about the USPS! (Whatever you do, don’t tell him about FedEx- it may just put him over the edge!)

Sacramentune: One of my customers…

Our cell phones had been acting up lately- refusing to hold a charge, failing to connect in places where they had always worked, etc., so I figured it was time to get new ones. On Thursday afternoon I logged in to the Verizon Wireless web site to check out what phones were available for our calling plan, and selected one (making sure I got the USPS employee discount!). Before too long I got an email confirming my purchase, and shortly after that, an email saying the phones had been shipped.

I’ve bought stuff online enough to know that a notice that an item has shipped often means ‘we sent it from the warehouse to the shipping room’, so I wasn’t too concerned that there was no info on the USPS Track and Confirm site the next day for the packages. I checked again on Saturday morning- still no data. That led me to believe that the phones probably hadn’t really been shipped at all yet.

So I was very pleasantly surprised when my rural carrier blew her horn and waved a pair of Priority packages at me. Yep- ordered Thursday afternoon, delivered Saturday morning! The packages came from either Texas (that’s where the mailing label said they were ’shipped from’), or Pennsylvania (the meter strip insists they were ‘mailed from’ there!).

Either way, great service! Now if we could just get the tracking part down. Just for the heck of it, I checked the numbers again a few minutes ago, and there’s still no information. Makes me wonder if they ever got scanned at all- and yes, the confirmation numbers provided by Verizon match the ones on the bar code labels on the boxes.

On the other hand, I purchased another item on line last Friday. This item was shipped FedEx, and the tracking page at FedEx.com has been providing information about each and every move the package has made. The problem is that those moves haven’t added up to much so far. Since last Friday, the box has only made it from Sun Valley, CA to Bloomington CA. According to Google, that’s 64 miles. At that rate, it’s gonna be a while before it gets to Massachusetts!

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–FedEx Kinko’s, an operating company of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), today announced the introduction of two new offerings — FedEx Kinko’s^SM Direct Mail Services and Print Online — further establishing the company as a convenient resource for office, printing and shipping services.

For advertising and marketing campaigns, FedEx Kinko’s Direct Mail Services helps small and medium-size businesses easily communicate to target audiences. Services available include design, production, professional finishing, address cleansing and verification, mail processing, and more all in one place. Read the rest of this entry »

Traffic World reports that the US Department of Transportation and FedEx are at odds over revealing volume and revenue numbers for FedEx’s lucrative contract to fly mail for the US Postal Service.

FedEx and the USPS contend that the volume based nature of the USPS contract means that the company doesn’t actually compile the data the DOT is after. “FedEx said the Postal Service does not tell FedEx what it is using the space for, and furthermore, FedEx is allowed to use unused Postal Service space, including space inside containers, to move other shipments.”

Commercial airlines, which have lost significant postal revenue since the inception of the FedEx contract, are pressing the agency to insist that FedEx supply the data.

A decision by the DOT is expected soon, but it may not be the final word, since either FedEx or another interested party could appeal the decision in court.

Update: Postcom’s web site provides a link to the petition filed by FedEx with the DOT’s Director of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, disputing the reporting requirement.

Shipping Digest reports today that parcel shippers expect ”rate increases of about 2 to 3 percent on most products … as the industry waits for UPS, FedEx Express and DHL to unveil their 2007 rate cards.”

The story is based on a Morgan Stanley survey of “more than 250 of the largest U.S. parcel shippers”.

The survey also found that shippers continue to “shift more loads to lower-cost ground from air”, and that

“…shippers projected the fastest growth in shipment volume for the U.S. Postal Service at 4.4 percent, reflecting service improvements by the agency and cost savings because ‘USPS cannot charge a fuel surcharge.’”…

… Shippers said USPS “has a long way to go” to make up the quality gap it has with UPS and FedEx…

… Since USPS is the biggest customer for FedEx, Morgan Stanley said the postal rate increase also has the potential to dampen FedEx volume to the benefit of UPS.

An article in Aviation Daily says that Southwest Airlines’ freight revenues in the third quarter were down $30 million “partly because the airline will not renew its contract with the U.S. Postal Service”. But the airline apparently doesn’t feel that’s a bad thing- the article quotes Southwest CEO Gary Kelly as saying that the USPS is a “difficult customer”, that it “had a list of demands that would have impacted the integrity of our operation”. Servicing the USPS, according to Kelly, “would have resulted in a significant amount of investment for low yields”, so the company is seeking other commercial customers. Another factor cited by Kelly was the shift of postal business to FedEx, UPS, and ground transportation.

Understandably enough, FedEx and UPS have changed their collection schedules in Boston to account for the airport tunnel closings.

The postal service hasn’t, which just demonstrates the difference between the PO and the private carriers. If the USPS had moved up collection times by an hour, there would no doubt have been congressional investigations, legislation delaying any change until full OIG and GAO reports had been filed, and editorials in the Boston Herald calling for the privatization of the Postal Service. 

FedEx outlets move up last daily collection time- Boston Globe