CIVIL RIGHTS, WORKERS RIGHTS GROUPS MAKE
‘INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS’ DODGE INTO CAUSE

Using the fate of the 15,000 non-unionized FedEx Ground drivers as an example of rampant problems in the U.S. workforce, a top workers rights group and a leading civil rights coalition are trying to make business’ misclassification of workers into “independent contractors”--a common dodge--into a civil rights issue.

In a report released on Oct. 24 and a telephone press conference, Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Mary Beth Maxwell of American Rights at Work and two FedEx Ground workers from Massachusetts described how the firm uses the misclassification of the workers to repeatedly deny them not only their labor rights but to let its supervisors discriminate against workers based on race and/or ethnicity.

The solution Henderson and Maxwell advocated is to bring all workers under the protection of strengthened labor law through passage of the labor-backed Employee Free Choice Act, drafted to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining.

But the FedEx Ground workers, as a class, are also challenging their status in a class-action suit against the firm in federal court in northern Indiana. Meanwhile four Massachusetts workers are also suing in local court, charging discrimination against them because they are Arab-Americans.

Companies, especially in construction, routinely misclassify workers as “independent contractors” under federal labor law, and get away with it. The misclassification deprives the workers of any labor law protection and also lets the firms get away from paying Medicare, Social Security or workers’ comp on workers’ behalf.

But FedEx Ground--the old Overnite Transportation--goes even farther than that, the report and the speakers said. It controls virtually every facet of the workers’ jobs, but it makes them buy their own trucks, at $42,000 each, gas, uniforms, insurance and equipment. It refuses to reimburse them, but still controls their routes and assignments and can use that control to discriminate against workers, especially union supporters.

In response, workers at some FedEx Ground terminals, including the one in Wilmington, Mass., a Boston suburb, have voted to unionize with the Teamsters. The company has struck back by claiming they can’t unionize because they’re “independent contractors.” But both the NLRB and courts in California have thrown that excuse out, saying the workers are “employees” covered by labor law.

The point of the report and the press conference is to tell the rest of the country about the workers’ situation and urge action, especially for EFCA, Maxwell said. “When we tell the American people these stories of injustice, people do not like it and want something to be done about it,” she said.

“I don’t think the public is fully aware of the nature of the struggles many workers endure in trying to form unions,” added Henderson, whose group’s members include the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees and other unions. “This is to put a human face on the difficulties the workers encounter in trying to get their rights.”

In addition to the class-action suit in Indiana, the four Arab-American drivers from in Massachusetts are telling the court they suffer racial, ethnic and religious discrimination--and that FedEx didn’t do anything about it.

“We had harassment in this terminal before the union came in” when the Massachusetts drivers voted to join the Teamsters, said driver Loay El-Dagany.

Typical was the comment his manager made when El-Dagany asked to withdraw money from his company-run savings account to send back to his family overseas. His manager “says I’m sending the money back to al-Qaeda,” he told the press conference call. Another Arab-American worker, Montaser Foad Harara, quotes the same manager as saying “You are a terrorist.”

“Now that the union is in, it’s different. All is quiet,” El-Dogany said.

FedEx Ground drivers are paid on a piecework basis, so any undelivered packages cost them money. In addition to their court suit, the FedEx Ground Arab-American drivers in Massachusetts also sued the firm before the state’s Commission Against Discrimination.

But the drivers have to take the long, expensive individual lawsuit route because they lack rights under labor law, the report says. That’s because the firm misclassifies them as “independent contractors.”