FedEx workers unionize

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Union Drive Starts at Tax-Dodging FedEx (http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article22.php?id=1630)

Jun 28, 2011
By SocialistAlternative.org


Do you pay your fair share in taxes? You probably pay more than your fair share for wars, bailouts and corporate givebacks. FedEx, on the other hand, dodges taxes left and right as budget cuts are slashing education, firehouses, libraries, jobs, benefits, etc.

US Uncut states, “When it comes to paying their fair share of taxes, FedEx simply does not deliver. When FedEx made $1.9 billion in profits, they managed to pay less than .0005% of it in taxes by using 21 tax havens. FedEx also spent 42 times (4200%) more on lobbying Congress than they did in taxes.”

Meanwhile, they have cut thousands of jobs, and have paid the FedEx Ground CEO David Rebholz over $4.5 million in “compensation” last year. What did he do to deserve this reward? Keep wages low and bust unions drives, apparently. FedEx Ground package handlers make less than $11,000 a year, wages so low they qualify for food stamps and Mass Health while doing grueling physical labor with no breaks, no sick days and poverty wages.

FedEx Ground package handlers in Brockton, MA are standing up and fighting back. They deserve all of our support. FedEx management has called the cops on these workers while they were organizing off of company property. Still, Brockton workers filed for election with the NLRB to be represented by Teamsters Local 653. Oppose tax dodging? Hate union busters? Angry about corporate domination? Help us organize FedEx workers into unions across the country. Build actions to oppose FedEx tax dodging. We can do this. Let’s win.

Email: [email protected] All inquiries are 100% confidential!

* If you can help in any way with this union drive please fill out the form here (https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEJKaG1jTzM4bXU5eHdOdU82WE5ya3c6M Q)!

[Hammilton]

Good for them. I worked at UPS one summer in college. It's union. Awful work though. I feel for anyone who works in a such a setting for even shittier pay and benefits without that protection.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yea. I worked at UPS for a short while. They had me on a 3 hour shift, lifting boxes in a hot warehouse for $9 an hour. It took me an hour to get there and an hour (or more with traffic) to get back. I used a few gallons of gas and had to pay an $8 toll to cross the river on the way home. Do the math on that and you'll see why I ended my brief career there.

The funny part was that management repeatedly mentioned that they couldn't understand why they lost a huge percentage of their employees in the first few days of work.

[Black Sheep]

I hope they rise up and leave their CEO on a deserted island in the middle of the Atlantic.

[danyboy27]

Its about damn fucking time. lets hope the teamster will be representing them.

i talked to a fews fedex employee and what they have to endure is a goddamn shame.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I think what the workers who belong to the Teamsters have to endure is a damn shame too.

[danyboy27]

I think what the workers who belong to the Teamsters is a damn shame too.

UNfortunately its the best bet they have if they want to win.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Win what?

[danyboy27]

Win what?

their fight of being unionised.

[Principia Ethica]

Yes! This is good news! (And I used to be vehemently anti-union in a past life.)

[HarperHater]

Well on them, although I've never personally worked for fed-ex I 100% support their struggle for a union.

[Ocean Seal]

Yea. I worked at UPS for a short while. They had me on a 3 hour shift, lifting boxes in a hot warehouse for $9 an hour. It took me an hour to get there and an hour (or more with traffic) to get back. I used a few gallons of gas and had to pay an $8 toll to cross the river on the way home. Do the math on that and you'll see why I ended my brief career there.

The funny part was that management repeatedly mentioned that they couldn't understand why they lost a huge percentage of their employees in the first few days of work.


I think what the workers who belong to the Teamsters have to endure is a damn shame too.

Well consider your own experience here. Yeah most yellow unions are quite often shit, but consider what they could have done for you in that situation. Longer shift, better pay, compensation for your travel. Unions are only useless because we allow the leadership to step on us. Fight back, and organize the workers to actually put a stop to something. Small streams make a river.

[Sensible Socialist]

their fight of being unionised.
Winning that fight means nothing if the union isn't adequately fighting for gains for the workers.

[Olentzero]

Good on FedEx workers for standing up! I certainly hope they win. As for the undeniably sad state of the Teamsters today, the good news is that Sandy Pope, a Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) member with an actual history as a rank-and-file union worker - instead of Hoffa's career that started at the top and stayed there - has made the ballot (http://socialistworker.org/2011/07/20/teamster-reformer-makes-ballot) for general president with a good chance of winning if the Hoffa vote is split. It'll take a lot more than that to turn the union around, but this is certainly a step in that direction!

[Reznov]

Now lets see if this actually accomplishes anything.

I actually was going to apply for a job there next summer too.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Well consider your own experience here. Yeah most yellow unions are quite often shit, but consider what they could have done for you in that situation.

I worked for UPS, which means I was under a Teamster contract. So yeah, like I said...

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU)

Which is the organization that used the capitalist courts to sue the union, thus bringing it under the control of the state. Of course that control was later used to remove Ron Carey, the candidate they endorsed, from the presidency after the union struck UPS.

[YSR]

NHIA, you and I don't see eye-to-eye on much, but here I'm totally in agreement with you. I've heard so many stories about how the Teamsters at UPS are shit, I'm not expecting much from their drive at FedEx. Any union is almost always better than no union, so I'm supportive of this drive and hope that it goes forward, but with the exception of some of the militant locals, the IBT is total shit.

An anarchist IWW buddy of mine who used to work at the UPS packing plant up the street from me for a bit suggested I try working there for a minute just to experience the level of struggle on the shop floor. Conditions are so bad that militant struggle frequently breaks out on the floor against management, totally outside the union. Those cats need a real union, TDU is fine and all, but it's not going to fundamentally challenge the basic structure of the Teamsters and as NHIA points out is not any kind of revolutionary group. Plus the story I hear is that the faction is internally about as democratic as the IBT is.

[Olentzero]

Unions don't need to be revolutionary to be militant. How many of those guys whom you saw struggling were fully conscious revolutionaries?

Sandy Pope, at least, started from the ground up in the IBT and knows what conditions are like in the rank and file, which means at least she's more likely to work to get the Teamsters to respond to militant action like the kind you saw on the shop floor than Hoffa is. It's bringing those militants on board, not Pope's efforts from above, that would challenge the basic structure of the Teamsters. Hoffa, on the other hand, isn't even going to lift a finger to try even that.

Pope's not the savior of the union - that's the rank and file. But a Pope presidency (that sounds really weird, like the Vatican took over DC) opens the door to that potential.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Oh yeah? Like how Khrushchev served the working class because he knew what the conditions for workers were like? :rolleyes:

"Full-time status for the union committeeman, which began as a means of freeing the union representative from the pressures of management, became a means of freeing the representative from the pressure of the workers." - Martin Glaberman

[black magick hustla]

Unions don't need to be revolutionary to be militant. How many of those guys whom you saw struggling were fully conscious revolutionaries?

Sandy Pope, at least, started from the ground up in the IBT and knows what conditions are like in the rank and file, which means at least she's more likely to work to get the Teamsters to respond to militant action like the kind you saw on the shop floor than Hoffa is. It's bringing those militants on board, not Pope's efforts from above, that would challenge the basic structure of the Teamsters. Hoffa, on the other hand, isn't even going to lift a finger to try even that.

Pope's not the savior of the union - that's the rank and file. But a Pope presidency (that sounds really weird, like the Vatican took over DC) opens the door to that potential.

this is the deadweight of trotskyism in its full glory. why do you guys care so much about unions. most people are not in unions. even unionized people generally don't give a fuck about union meetings, etc. i don't think unions will ever exist in the same way they did before. industrial work and manual mass labor where conductive to unionization. the new proletarian hero are the 20somethings that wait tables and spend all their money in drugs and tattoos. good luck unionizing that. the international socialists had this brilliant idea of putting people with college degrees in industrial jobs. since then unions have been dwindling.

[RED DAVE]

this is the deadweight of trotskyism in its full glory. why do you guys care so much about unions. most people are not in unions.You got a better idea for right now?


even unionized people generally don't give a fuck about union meetings, etc.This has always been true for large numbers of workers, even during militant actions, strikes, organizing drives, etc.


i don't thinkYou don't think. Are we dealing with your impressions or an objective analysis?


unions will ever exist in the same way they did before.Could be so in, say, the USA, or not. How about in China?


industrial work and manual mass labor where conductive to unionization.How about teachers, transport workers, food service workers, retail workers?


the new proletarian hero are the 20somethings that wait tables and spend all their money in drugs and tattoos.Who drives the trucks that deliver the good to the restaurants?


good luck unionizing that.The IWW is trying to do just that, with some success.


the international socialists had this brilliant idea of putting people with college degrees in industrial jobs.Yeah. I was part of that drive. I'm still engaged in union activity. It was quite successful until the militancy of the early 1970s began to fade. However, there are still militant organizations like TDU and the Labor Notes organization that are a direct result of this effort.


since then unions have been dwindling.As has the left. However, there are some signs at least that the labor movement in the USA is reviving. We'll see.

Again, if you want mass defense of the working class, what is your alternative to unions? And what experience have you had in the labor movement and/or the working class?

RED DAVE

[black magick hustla]

You got a better idea for right now?

yes, to chill the fuck out and rethink rather than doing the same shit people have done for a century. (which didn't lead to revolution)




This has always been true for large numbers of workers, even during militant actions, strikes, organizing drives, etc.



true, but i think we are dealing with something objectively different than the other eras. i think the precarianization of labor and its atomization, not because of a strategic concern of the bosses but the nature of work today, are making unions increasingly obsolete. beyond a few very meager successeses i don't think the service sector is unionizable.





Could be so in, say, the USA, or not. How about in China?

i am not in china



How about teachers, transport workers, food service workers, retail workers?


only the first one and second one, i think the third and fourth have been shown to be particularly resistant to unionization.




The IWW is trying to do just that, with some success.


if by some success you mean a few shops here and there, coupled with the fact that the nature of that work is that people leave and come in all the time i doubt it will be much of a success.




Yeah. I was part of that drive. I'm still engaged in union activity. It was quite successful until the militancy of the early 1970s began to fade. However, there are still militant organizations like TDU and the Labor Notes organization that are a direct result of this effort.

what do you mean by succesful?




As has the left. However, there are some signs at least that the labor movement in the USA is reviving. We'll see.

i think some sectors of the "labor movement" that has been traditionally militant, like teachers, will get "revived" and maybe their unions will participate. i don't think that people in the tertiary sector will be unionized in any meaningful way. i think the future of the class struggle is going to be a lot of rioting and wildcat strikes outside the unions.




Again, if you want mass defense of the working class, what is your alternative to unions? And what experience have you had in the labor movement and/or the working class?

RED DAVE

first, i think unions are only capable of defense today, i don't think they can make gains. second, unions emerged due to historical specificities ofthe era and of work, i don't think we are going to see in the first world (and then the third world) any meaningful drive towards unionization beyond the sectors that has been traditionally unionized (a few coffee shops here and there is not "meaningful", and i strongly suspect those are weak links anyway because the personnel in those workplaces changes all the time).

anyway what is my alternative? i don't know, for one, one would think that a lot of the younger workers, i.e. people in shitty service jobs and constructions sites that spend all their money in booze and drugs and hate their situation in life should be ripe for communist agitation. but a lot of the marxists and anarchists carry the deadweight of the old labor movement and old demographics and ways of struggle that when they rabbit on about dialectics and trade unions they have really nothing to say to most of the people that one think might be more receptive.