Chris Hedges: Boycott FedEx

from Truthdig:



Boycott FedEx
Posted on Feb 22, 2010

By Chris Hedges


Dean Henderson’s career with FedEx ended abruptly when a reckless driver plowed into his company truck and mangled his leg. His doctor will decide this week if it needs to be amputated. No longer able to drive, stripped of value in our commodity culture, he was tossed aside by the company. He became human refuse. He spends most of his days, because of the swelling and the pain, with his leg raised on a recliner in the tiny apartment in Fairfax, Va., he shares with his stepsister. He struggles without an income and medical insurance, and he fears his future.

Henderson is not alone. Workers in our corporate state earn little when they work—Henderson made $18 an hour—and they are abandoned when they can no longer contribute to corporate profits. It is the ethic of the free market. It is the cost of unfettered capitalism. And it is plunging tens of millions of discarded workers into a collective misery and rage that is beginning to manifest itself in a dangerous right-wing backlash.

“This happened while I was wearing their uniform and driving one of their company vehicles,” Henderson, a 40-year-old military veteran, told me. “My foot is destroyed. I have a fused ankle. I have had over a dozen surgeries. It hurts to wear a sock. I was limping pretty badly, but in the spring of 2008 FedEx said I had to come back to work and sit in a chair. It saved them money on workers’ compensation payments. I worked a call center job and answered telephones. I did that for three months. I had my ankle fused in January 2009, and then FedEx fired me. I was discarded. They washed their hands of me and none of this was my fault.”

Our destitute working class is beginning to grasp that Barack Obama and other elected officials in Washington, who speak in a cloying feel-your-pain language, are liars. They are not attempting to prevent wages from sinking, unemployment from mounting, foreclosures from ripping apart communities, banks from looting the U.S. Treasury or jobs from being exported. The gap between our stark reality and the happy illusions peddled by smarmy television news personalities and fatuous academic and financial experts, as well as oily bureaucrats and politicians, is becoming too wide to ignore. Those cast aside are reaching out to anyone, no matter how buffoonish or ignorant, who promises that the parasites and courtiers who serve the corporate state will disappear. Right-wing rage is being fused with right-wing populism. And once this takes hold, a protofascism will sweep across our blighted landscape fueled by a mounting personal and economic despair. Take a look at Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here.” It is a good window into what awaits us. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boycott_fedex_20100222/

:kick:

post master is an employee, but the mailpersons are all "independent contractors".

Apparently, the USPS has looked at the FedEx model and is now implementing it.

My backyard neighbor is one, and he is a proud union member and Dem.

the VA about Priority 5 status. That covers vets in need, and isn't limited to service related issues
If he gets any grief he should use his congress critter's staff to clear the path.

:(

I have had about 10 times more worse experiences with shipping and getting shipped stuff from FedEx as I have from any of the other companies. I know it takes away from this guys story but I think both of them together are a good indication of just how they like to do business. It really isn't about the customer or the employee...it's about their bottom line.

I finally asked one company to not send my packages by FedEx. They put the packages on my front steps and didn't ring the doorbell to let me know they are there. Easy to steal - which has happened. My US mail person and the UPS driver are sooo much better.

Yup. Consistently.

At first I was pissed because I am sure if I hadn't seen him he would have left. Anyway, when I learned about how he was responsible to pay for the damage out of his paycheck I was flabbergasted. After speaking with him for a while I started to feel bad for him. He said that companies that want to handle the fedex ground business have to sign a contract that is all in fedex's favor. They dictate all the terms and if you want to do business you do it their way. They drive fedex trucks, wear fedex uniforms but fedex takes zero risk. It is all on the "independent" driver.

Vampire capitalism.

from every other freight or package delivery company in this country, and that status is currently being challenged in federal court.

Either they level the playing field and let all the companies declare themselves 'railroads', or bring FedEx under the same rules governing trucking.


http://ir.fedex.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=388559

Thanks for the link.

...a driver CREAMED a railing at our dock. He paid something like $3000, which came out of his paycheck.

Cost me $20.00.

I'll boycott the bastards. Can someone please tell me what other carrier offers overnite service? I'm quite ignorant about these things. Thanks.

Though sometimes rural post offices add a day to overnight service, and have some limits on package size. UPS is very good, if you have reasonable access to a UPS service counter (or drop box, if you have the correct envelope/labels), and UPS does'nt have Saturday service. The USPS 3-day "priority mail" is economical, & has worked well for me for docs and small parts.

There is a surcharge for Saturday delivery, but it is available. It is the ground service which has no Saturday option. If you don't have convenient access to a Service Counter, a UPS Store, or a Staples location, UPS will pick up your package at home. Again, there is a surcharge for this service, but it is available. This can all be done online. Details at www.UPS.com.

Link to Obama praising Fred Smith here: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-11/obama-admires-fedex-s-smith-among-ceos-who-give-economic-advice.html

An article on Fred Smith's anti-union activism: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009068_154641.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis

Mr. Smith was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Cato Institute as recently as 2007.

Sometimes (most of the time now, actually) I think Obama just doesn't get it. After he signs the Senate's 15 cent jobs bill into law, what are Americans going to do for a pay check- beg Mr. Smith and his ilk for a no benefits job? Is that what he and Mr. Smith "really enjoyed talking" about at the White House?

If the unions aren't part of the Democratic Party's base- it doesn't have a base.

The last time I took this position on such an issue I was called every name in the book, and few bothered to understand my point when name calling was so much easier....

But alas, here I go again....

The answer here is laws making this illegal, and a way to get victims of such abuse the legal means to take advantage of the laws.

In a bets case scenario, a boycott damages the company enough that they change their way, but it takes out a lot more people in the short term that we are in effect on the side of first. But in the end, people are ultimately going to use FedEx because they are a reliable method of shipping--hence a boycott is not a realistic solution.

If we look back through history it was things like the Southern Poverty Law Center that disemboweled groups and businesses that discriminated. It is the same combination of law and consequence of violating it that will win this fight. A boycott may feel good, but as so many already expressed, they don't use FedEx anyways.

Hammer away...

Really people hammered you for that?

This place is a mess.

:kick:

to customer service about horrible FedEx service. I've had numerous packages delivered to the wrong address. This year, they managed to deliver a rush Xmas present 4 days late (after I paid NDA shipping).

UPS and USPS are at least union employees. I've never had a problem with UPS. I used to work for them as both labor and later management. Tightest ship in the shipping business. Great company to work for and do business with. It's worth the money to me.

UPS sent my packages to the wrong address & FedEx got them there on time although I believe the cost was higher.

I have gone back to UPS because it is a Union company, but I am not completely trusting.