NLRB Regional Director Rules Connecticut FedEx Drivers are Employees

http://sev.prnewswire.com/transportation-trucking-railroad/20070417/DCTU11517042007-1.html

WASHINGTON, April 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 34 Director Peter Hoffman ruled that a group of FedEx Home Delivery drivers in Windsor, Connecticut, are employees and eligible to vote in an upcoming union election.

Teamsters Local Union 671 in Hartford, Connecticut, petitioned the NLRB for an election among single route drivers. Hoffman's decision wholly rejected the company's position that these drivers are contractors.

"The (contractor's) agreement is presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis," Hoffman wrote in his decision. "Although the agreement states the mutual intention of the parties to reduce the geographic size of a contract driver's route if there is an increase in customer and package volume, only (FedEx) retains the right to unilaterally determine and reconfigure a driver's territory."

Hoffman cited testimony by FedEx managers that "the substantive terms of the agreement have remained fundamentally unchanged since about 2000 and that those substantive terms have been enforced as written at the Hartford terminal at all material times."

The April 11 decision is the latest ruling by civil courts, state authorities or the NLRB to conclude the drivers are employees and not contractors. Hoffman noted that this decision is the fifth since November 2004 to find the drivers to be employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRB has upheld each of the previous four regional directors' decisions.

"The FedEx drivers are proving again and again that the company is skirting the law by calling them 'contractors' but controlling them like employees," said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. "The Teamsters and the drivers will continue to face down the company's lies and will take back the rights that the company is denying its workers."

"This Hartford ruling is the next link in the chain of decisions around the country that give FedEx drivers the chance to vote for the Teamsters to improve their work conditions and their lives," said Teamster Local Union 671 Secretary-Treasurer Dave Lucas.

FedEx is falling under increasing scrutiny by the NLRB. In March, NLRB Region 1 issued a complaint alleging multiple unfair labor practices at a FedEx Home Delivery terminal in Northboro, Massachusetts. A hearing into those allegations is set for June 18. An election at the FedEx Home Delivery terminal in Windsor, Connecticut is not yet scheduled.

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States and Canada.

Contact: Galen Munroe, (202) 624-6904
Website: http://www.teamster.org/

crackpot ideas back in the 1970's?

Sinistrous