FedEx Ground accused of illegal treatment of unionizing workers
PHILADELPHIA_The National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a hearing on accusations that FedEx Ground violated federal labor laws.
The hearing before an administrative law judge in Philadelphia will hear accusations that the company discouraged drivers from forming a union.
The company is also accused of discriminating against drivers who filed charges or testified against them.
About 70 drivers at two terminals in South Jersey are involved.
FedEx Ground, based in Pittsburgh, is a unit of FedEx Corporation in Memphis.
The labor board has set the hearing on July 31st.
04-07-06
US authority charges FedEx Ground over alleged illegal driver treatment
Picture: FedEx Ground
The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is charging FedEx Ground/Home Delivery with alleged illegal practices stemming from its treatment of drivers at the company’s Barrington and West Deptford, New Jersey terminals, according to a complaint issued by the agency.
The company, according to the complaint, engaged in a pattern of illegal practices against drivers at the two terminals primarily as a result of their involvement in organizing a labor association to represent their interests. At the Barrington terminal, the drivers became the first group of FedEx drivers in the U.S. to vote for representation. FedEx says the drivers are independent contractors, not employees.
The NLRB accuses the company of firing, and/or threatening drivers involved in the organizing efforts, terminating driver insurance and route operating contracts, discriminating against drivers who testified before or filed charges against FedEx Ground/Home Delivery with the NLRB, and promising preferential treatment if drivers rejected the collective bargaining campaign.
“We are once again encouraged that yet another government agency has found that the drivers are employees that they have been the innocent victims of blatant discrimination simply because they were trying to protect their rights in the workplace,” says Jerald R. Cureton, Esq., the lawyer for the drivers.
The complaint requires FedEx to answer the charges by July 14, 2006, and set a date of July 31 for a hearing before an NLRB Administrative Law Judge in Philadelphia.
Source: CEP-Research
