This just out...
And no I didn't make it up
FedEx Drivers Demand Employee Status (Arizona Republic, Aug. 22)
If FedEx can tell its ground-service drivers when to work, what to charge customers and what kind of socks and shoes to wear, shouldn’t they be considered employee? That’s what ground workers say in a lawsuit they have filed against the company.
As drivers in a nationwide lawsuit demand the federal pension benefits that are reserved for employees, FedEx founder and Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith has a lot at stake. If a judge in Indiana decides the drivers are employees, they'll seek $1 billion in damages. Plus, it may force the company to overhaul or even throw out a business model that provides FedEx Ground a cost advantage over rival UPS.
"The case does not look good for FedEx," said Michael Harper, a Boston University law professor who is writing the chapter on the definition of "employee" for the Restatement of Employment Law, a reference work to be published by the American Law Institute. The dispute has opened FedEx up to a series of related legal responsibilities, including a potential pretax liability from unpaid payroll taxes of as much as $2.5 billion.
The bigger problem for the second-largest U.S. package-delivery company may be how to overhaul the business model to make it compliant.
A Teamsters Union financial model predicts FedEx's costs would go up $426 million a year if the company compensated the drivers as it does present employees. The model assumes FedEx would pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, unemployment and worker-compensation insurance, vacations, health insurance and 15 hours a week of overtime.