Originally Posted by
Whistlin' Dan
I'm still confused. Perhaps you meant "The
totally independent contractors work for whoever signs their paycheck." If that's what you meant to say, I understand. I'm obviously having trouble drawing a distinction between them myself.
Personally, I'm less concerned with "who signs the check" and prefer, instead, to "follow the money trail" as one nefarious radio commentator puts it. In this case, it's pretty clear...the money trail leads directly up to FedEx. These "independent contractors" have NO other sources of income, and FedEx has NO other means of delivering it's product.It was working fairly well for UPS until your boy McArtor, as head of the FAA, made them bring it in-house. It seems to be working well for DHL and any number of Asian cargo carriers. Why couldn't an ACMI carrier with experience in-type operate the various elements of your fleet at significant savings to corp? The sense I have is that Fred won't do it, but what about the next guy, or the one after that?
A ridiculous argument. Of course if you "follow the money" it leads back to Fedex. Do you think it would be UPS?
Unlike the "independent contractors", the pilots are employees at Fedex. We have a contract and scope agreements in place. I'm certainly not saying anything is safe, but the "independent contractors" knew the deal when they bid the work. If they were guaranteed employment by Fedex in these signed agreements, I'd say they have a strong argument. Unfortunately for them, they don't.
Fedex contracts work from multiple sources. If you "follow the money", you will find that the people that clean the lavs, cater our meals, sometimes work on our aircraft, etc, are contractors. UPS does the same. The janitors in most of our offices are contractors. Fedex tells them what/where to clean, what time to be there, etc. Should we give them jobs too?
I'm not sure why they think Fedex should make them employees. I can see why the courts decided in Fedex's favor..