AN OPEN LETTER TO FEDEX GROUND/HOME DELIVERY DRIVERS
Here's the latest on the class-action lawsuit. Over the past six months we have deposed (taken sworn statements) from approximately 60 executives and managers of FedEx Ground. In turn, the FedEx attorneys have taken well over 100 depositions of the named Plaintiffs, and the "discovery" phase of the case is now wrapping up..
We are scheduled to take the deposition of former CEO, Dan Sullivan on Wednesday, January 10. He was a principal architect of FedEx Ground, and the executive primarily responsible for the perpetuation of the ruse that we all now know as the "independent contractor model".
While Ground and Home Delivery drivers work 12 to 14 hours a day for half of what UPS drivers earn, only to have their contracts threatened over the smallest dispute with FedEx managers, Sullivan basked in the light of the ever growing profits the company generated. The dirty little secret the lawsuit is exposing is that those profits were earned off of the backs of every driver who wore the uniform or believed in the "purple promise". While you were trying to figure out the meaning to you of the "purple promise", Sullivan reaped the rewards of the big "green promise": huge salary (more than $3.5 million) and windfall stock options ($7 million +), according to published reports.
Now, the time has come to ask Mr. Sullivan under oath, about how FedEx Ground recorded record profits while you had to pay your own employment taxes; your own workers compensation (see the attached letter about your "options" for how to spend your money on service to their company); your own unemployment and your own disability payments. We want to know how FedEx Ground explains how you are or were independent contractors while the company micro managed every part of your day, down to the socks you wore.
Taking depositions is all about getting to the truth by getting answers to what have been unanswered questions, such as:
-How and why FedEx Ground threatens to terminate contractors with "route abandonment", while those contractors are lying in hospital beds?
- Why the IRS is now accepting SS-8 forms from drivers and confirming their employment status?
-Why the NLRB has ruled over and over again that you are employees, but the company just ignores these government orders?
-Why drivers in California, Montana, New Jersey, Massachusetts and other states have been found to be employees by those states' department of labor?
-Why the company has told New Jersey drivers to make unemployment compensation and disability payments or have their contracts terminated?
When is FedEx Ground going to come clean to New Jersey its drivers?
There are so many questions.
Maybe Dan Sullivan will have many if not all the answers.
We'll keep you posted.