Fed Up with FedEx: A Report by American Rights at Work

The groups American Rights at Work and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights recently reported on FedEx Ground's misclassification of its drivers as "independent contractors," which denies their civil rights and workplace protections. Here is their summary and a link to the report.

When is a FedEx worker not a FedEx employee? When it benefits FedEx Corporation. In a new report, American Rights at Work and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights document the widespread use of employee misclassification at FedEx Ground, which denies workers’ fundamental civil rights and workplace protections.

Fed Up with FedEx: How FedEx Ground Tramples Workers' Rights and Civil Rights takes on FedEx Ground’s claim that its nearly 15,000 drivers are independent contractors and not employees. These drivers often face long hours, no benefits, and no control over their work, yet lack basic protections from labor and employment laws to address their working conditions. FedEx Ground is a striking example of corporate America’s use of troubling labor practices to deny workers their rights and dignity. When FedEx Ground drivers attempt to form unions, they are subject to intimidation, interrogation, and firings, according to federal charges. Court cases filed by drivers allege workplace discrimination and harassment, including racial and ethnic slurs.

We Need a Moral Crusade

We need a moral crusade. That’s how noted journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich approached ending the poverty of low-wage workers in the U.S. At a recent event at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, experts explained how our national policy is failing low-wage workers, leaving them in poverty and unable to afford basic necessities such as housing, food, child care, health insurance, and more. There are federal programs to help the working poor afford these and certain other essentials (dubbed “work supports”), but the system is antiquated and grossly inadequate. The speakers outlined a plan to improve and strengthen the system as part of a broad anti-poverty agenda.

Ehrenreich then asked the room, “How do we get this enacted?” Her answer was “a moral crusade”—much, she said, as the living wage movement has done by framing the issue of low wages as a moral issue. That is, it is immoral that a worker can work full time in this country and still live in poverty. Interfaith Worker Justice wholeheartedly agrees. We have been a leader in the living wage movement nationwide, through the coalition Let Justice Roll, and we will continue to use the voices and moral authority of our allies in the faith and labor communities to improve the wages, conditions, and lives of low-wage workers.

(Special thanks to Barbara Ehrenreich for her permission to use her comments on this blog.)