Saturday, June 9, 2007

Desperate Measures?

Russ Fleck, from FTA Terminal, had recently set up an interview for a supervisor position with a competitor trucking company for me. However, six months ago he said that I needed to improve my managerial and social skills before I could become a supervisor at FedEx. During the twelve years of my employment here at the Fontana terminal, I have seen dock workers and managers sent out of the terminal if they planned to work with a competing company. If an employee plans to switch to a competing company, they are not allowed to give a two week notice, allegedly due to ‘company policy’. So why is it that Russ Fleck would recommend me for this position? I decided to look into Russ’ offer and talk to the manager at the competing company and it turns out that he and Russ have known each other for over 20 years. I believe that this is a trick that Russ has laid out in an attempt to terminate me because I have been involved in organizing. Though I know it is against the law to fire an employee for switching to a competing company, I have no doubt in my mind that Russ and other managers would stoop so low to break the law.

-RAY MERCADO

Be Wise and ORGANIZE!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

RAY JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THATS ONE OF THE OLDEST TRICKS IN THE BOOKS THAT MANAGEMENT LIKES TO PULL, CONSOLIDATED FREIGHTWAYS USED TO TRY AND OFFER MANAGEMENT JOBS TO STEWARDS OR CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO GOT HURT ON THE JOB ,FOR STEWARDS IT WAS SO THEY WOULD GIVE UP THERE UNION STATUS AND THEY COULD FIRE THEM MUCH EASIER,AS FOR INJURED PEOPLE IT WAS SO THEY WOULD DROP THE LAWSUIT IN WHICH WAS THE CASE OF AN INDIVIDUAL AT CF ORANGE COUNTY. I ADVISED HIM IT WOULD NOT BE A GOOD IDEA,IN WHICH HE DID NOT LISTEN AND TOOK THE MANAGEMENT JOB AND WAS FIRED NOT TOO LONG AFTER.

irudedog said...

FTA Scott said...

Desperate Measures

Personally I would not trust either of them. I had been a Driver Trainer in the SFV terminal before I transferred to FTA. As all the stuff was going on with my shoulder and being off work, a Driver Trainer position came open in FTA so I asked for an application for it.

Russ flat out told me I would NEVER be a Driver Trainer in FTA as long as he was there. Do you really think my application was ever submitted by him?

Like I said...don't trust either of them!!!

June 10, 2007 6:39 PM

Anonymous said...

I am a dockworker in Fontana, ca.and I seen with my own eyes how management treat their own. A while back, a supervisor C.Patterson had giving his two-week notice of employment because he had found another job. The O.M. at the time must have had a problem with C.P.So instead of letting him work his last weeks, which at the time was the proper thing to do. He was told to collect his belongings and was escorted off the permissive that same they.
Goes to show you that no one is treated fairly in this company or at least at this terminal!

Anonymous said...

Support our Union Pilots!
and change fedex to win!





Our FedUp Brothers & Sisters in the sky are saying:
"ENOUGH is ENOUGH"!






And they're tightening their grip around Fred Smith's "throttle"



UNION PRIDE is providing a forum for the viewpoint of FedEx Pilot Association members and officers during their historic battle to obtain the very first Union contract at Federal Express.

UNION PRIDE will be updated as needed to provide breaking news of FPA developments. Please visit regularly. More important information is already being processed for posting.
As of early November, 98% of all our pilots have joined the FedEx Pilots Association.





What are the concerns motivating 98 of every 100 pilots to freely join the Union of their choice? The demands of the pilots are very reasonable: they seek parity with their peers at the other major airlines.

FedEx is now a "big player" among airlines, operating a fleet of over 600 planes. In 1997, only American and United airlines posted more total revenue worldwide! But Federal Express refuses to recognize its pilots true worth.
Pilots at Federal Express lag well behind their peers at other major airlines in terms of pay and pension. They are concerned

Anonymous said...

U.S. Labor Law Is Broken
By Mary Beth Maxwell

Mary Beth Maxwell is executive director of American Rights at Work, a nonprofit organization formed in 2003 to investigate and expose abuse of employee rights in the workplace, publicize the inadequacy of U.S. labor law and advocate change in the struggle to win workplace democracy.


If you ask most people in America why there are fewer members of unions, they have ready answers. They think it’s because of technology or because manufacturing jobs have left or it’s due to globalization and changes in the economy. They agree how important unions were in the old days, but wonder if maybe they just don’t fit anymore—maybe that’s why fewer workers have unions today.



There are three answers to that question that most people in America don’t know—and need to know—that explain why so few workers have unions.



The first is that employer interference with workers making a choice about a union is completely off the charts. At American Rights at Work, we crunched the government’s own numbers from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and demonstrated that literally every 23 minutes in the United States—in the United States of America—someone is illegally discriminated against or fired for trying to exercise their rights at work. That’s really an outrage in a democracy. There is a level of lawlessness in the U.S. workplace in terms of firings and surveillance and intimidation that I think would stun most people if they knew about it. We commissioned a report from the University of Illinois at Chicago that found 30 percent of employers fire somebody illegally during organizing campaigns. Further, 49 percent of employers threatened to shut down the worksite if people were to vote for forming a union, and 82 percent of those employers actually hire high-priced union-busting consultants to coach them in how to defeat those campaigns.



Second, most people in America have no idea that union-busting is a massive, for-profit industry—it’s simply not “some workers want a union and some don’t.” Workers are up against hired guns, coaching managers and middle-managers and co-workers on how to defeat a union organizing campaign.



In one case we brought to the attention of the New York Times, a group of 400 workers were trying to form a union at a manufacturing plant in South Carolina. Their employer, EnerSys, sued Jackson Lewis, their union-busting consultant, for malpractice. What came out in the course of that lawsuit, which normally never gets told, is that EnerSys paid Jackson Lewis $2.7 million over 10 years to coach managers to defeat that campaign. The company even called it a relentless and unlawful campaign to oust the union. Supervisors were counseled to fire people and they did. The company was counseled to fire supervisors who didn’t want to go along with that kind of illegal activity. That’s a primary reason that fewer workers today have unions.



Finally, the current legal system in the United States that’s supposed to protect workers’ rights is broken. It’s outdated. It’s completely manipulated by employers, coached by these union-busting consultants, who want to game that system. There are no meaningful penalties for illegal behavior. If you fire a worker, you can pretty much get away with it by paying very small amounts of back pay awards—sometimes years and years after the situation’s been addressed or after the NLRB has found an employer guilty.



For instance, a woman named Verna Bader was illegally fired for trying to form a union. She was 60 years old during the union organizing campaign. We met Verna 12 years later when she was 72 years old and still waiting for the NLRB to make a decision about whether or not she had been treated unfairly. The system is simply not working.



There is another way.

Cingular Wireless, and their partnership with CWA, demonstrates the strength of an entirely new model that would work so much better for companies, work so much better for workers and work better for our overall economy. [Cingular Wireless agreed to remain neutral in its employees’ efforts to form a union. As a result, a year after its 2004 merger with AT&T, some 17,000 former AT&T employees have joined CWA.] To address the crisis we face in terms of workers’ rights, and to build on the proven success of the Cingular example, there also is momentum around policy change through the Employee Free Choice Act.



The Employee Free Choice Act would create real penalties for illegal behavior. If an employer breaks the law, the employer should pay a price. The act would create a process and reasonable timelines to facilitate employers and workers settling contracts. It also would expand what’s called “card-check,” or majority sign-up. Majority sign-up is a process by which employers freely choose to recognize a union if a majority of employees provide signed cards authorizing union representation. An interesting note: This process requires a majority of the workers in the workplace, not just the majority of people who might participate in an NLRB election.



Frequently, majority verification is paired with a neutrality agreement, which makes for a process with less conflict, in which both parties come up with some rules of conduct so workers can have a free choice, and also so the workplace is not disrupted by unnecessary and costly conflict. Not only is majority sign-up a long-standing and legitimate process of union formation recognized under current law, it’s become the predominant way in which workers are forming unions. More than 80 percent of new organizing in recent years is occurring outside the NLRB—because the current system is broken.



There’s a growing list of employers—and I think Cingular Wireless is really at the top of the list of setting an entirely new model—that are pursuing new ways to work with their employees and reduce costly conflicts all too common in the NLRB election process. Majority verification and neutrality agreements help establish workplace partnership and collaboration—a strategic asset in today’s economy. A year ago at American Rights at Work, we launched our Socially Responsible Business Project to also tell the good news and highlight models such as Cingular where the employee-employer relationship could be so different.



Companies and unions are creating new models and voting with their feet. They are moving increasingly outside of the current legal framework. The Employee Free Choice Act would build on the best of that innovation and update our laws to better reflect the realities of the American workplace. Every worker deserves what the workers at Cingular Wireless get—a fair chance and a free choice. Let’s make it the law of the land again to protect workers’ freedom to form unions.

Anonymous said...

fedex employee handbook...

It is in the new handbook and in the 2003 handbook.. IT PROHIBITED TO WORK FOR THE COMPETITORS.

2007 handbook on page 40
2003 handbook on page 27


Ray........

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

OTHER EMPLOYMENT

It said in the old and in the new handbook that is prohibited to work for the competitors.
If you choose to consider other employment while at Fedex Freight West, you must complete Other Employment Request from and submit to your Manger prior to accepting and working for another employer. Your Manger will process the request and notify you of the approval or denial.
It is essential that Fedex Freight West be fully informed of any outside employment. Your failure to comply with this process may result in DISCIPLINARY ACTION, UP TO AND INCLUDING TERMINATION.......

Ray.....

Anonymous said...

ray said...

OTHER EMPLOYMENT

It said in the employee new and the old handbook that is prohibited to work for the competitor.
If you to consider other employment while employed at Fedex Freight West you must complete Other Employment Request from and submit to your Manger prior to accepting and working for another employer. Your Manger will process request and notify you of the approval or denial..

Page 27 on handbook 2003
Page 40 on handbook 2007
Ray....

Anonymous said...

CAN ANYBODY ANSWER IN FONTANA TERMINAL WHY REGGIE CANNON CAN'T GET HIRED AT FEDEX EAST? THE REAL REASON IS BECAUSE RUSS (SVC CTR MANAGER)STATED UP NORTH NOT TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR REHIRED AT ANY FEDEX FACILITY WEST OR EAST,WHICH THIS IS B/S WHEN REGGIE GAVE ENOUGH NOTICED WHEN QUITTING,SO THAT HE COULD MOVE BACK EAST, AND REGGIE ALSO QUIT WITH GOOD CONDUCTS AND THE MERITS OF HONESTY.WITH A MANAGER LIKE THIS IS WHY YOU GUYS NEED A UNION!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Mercado. It seems to me that you have a good case here. I will be in contact with you threw the e-mail of this blog.Our attorneys can help you.

Anonymous said...

Just to let you know I used to work with Russ Fleck. I can't believe what he has done to Ray. Russ was a very professional person as a manager. It's a shame that he would be so desperate to stoop to these measures to try and get Ray out of FedEx. He used to have a lot more class than that. I thought Russ knew better than to violate a company policy. He needs to be disciplined like the rest of us would be if we violated company policy.

Anonymous said...

As a ruler for his own yard, and in his position breaking a company policy is unethical, not following in accordance with principle of right or good conduct, and where are his morality as a professional skill manager.
Ray I hope you have brought this to human resource attention! Therefore, Tom Suchevist if you are reading this blogsite, Russ needs to be disciplined, as the rest of us would be if we violated company policy.
And Ray get this person involved that knows Russ for twenty years as a witness to testify for you, so that others know that this was not fabricate

Anonymous said...

NATERA'S

21ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE
SUNDADY OCT,7.2007
THROUGH
WEDNESDAY OCT,10,2007
AT RED ROCK CASINO RESORT,SPA LAS VEGAS,3:45 – 4:30 P.M. “Grievance Resolution for the Non-Union Employer” — Tom Suchevits, Vice President Human Resources, FedEx Freight ...

Anonymous said...

RAY: HUMAN RESOURCE IS ALSO A UNION BUSTER LIKE (TOM SUCHEVISTS),Listen to the issues at hand and remember that everything we have been conditioned to believe is not always true. When an H.R. issue arises the company has people to talk with and seek advice, they are called Human Resource Professionals, Corporate Attorneys and Physicians. Why shouldn’t employees’ have someone in their corner such as Union Representation? Grievance procedures ensure a fair workplace. H.R. is paid to protect the company not the employee.They waited 7 days to give you a bogus answer about Russ fleck not breaking any rules,when 1:stealing company time and wasting time with another carriers of competition to arrange an interview with you on company time,and why another carrier when there is another terminal being open in devore.2:soliciting you to another carrier on company time thats stealing company time,3:involving you in a conflict of interest to work for another carrier of competition.

P.S ASK TOM SUCHEVIST HOW MUCH $ TO TURN THE OTHER WAY?