On the heels of an overwhelming vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to provide uniform organizing rights for workers in the package delivery industry, FedEx this week announced a multi-million dollar campaign to preserve current language that has allowed FedEx to stifle organizing drives for more than a decade.
“FedEx has taken corporate arrogance to a new level with their latest campaign,” declared Headquarters GVP Rich Michalski. “With a legion of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions, FedEx expects to maintain the unfair advantage they slipped into a bill more than a decade ago, giving them a huge advantage over their competitors, while keeping a chokehold on their employees.”
Unlike most workers in the package delivery industry, who are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, the ground workers at FedEx are covered by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), a critical distinction when it comes to organizing. Under the RLA, workers can only organize in a single, national bargaining unit, rather than by individual locations. The cost and complexity of a national organizing campaign at hundreds of separate locations has effectively prevented significant union organizing at FedEx.
FedEx has a long and ugly history of violating workers rights, including the widespread designation of FedEx employees as “independent contractors.” In addition to misclassifying employees, FedEx routinely failed to pay Social Security, workers’ comp, overtime pay and state withholding taxes.
