UPS

I worked for FedEx Ground for 18 months....well sort of. I wore a uniform that said FedEx...I dove a truck that said the same thing. But thats about it.

You are either a contractor or a sub contractor for this outfit. You can plop down $40,000 for the privalage of owning a route, or you can work for the guy that did so. In either case expect to be over worked and underpaid.

Here are a few other things that FedEx wont tell you when you get hired.

1. You dont really work for FedEx! You are hired as a temp through Kelly Services out of Pensylvania.... then if you are lucky you get hired through one of the contractors.

2. Dont expect an hourly wage. Contractors pay you a weekly salary. I was getting $120.00 per day....oh wow!

3. Be sure to set some of that money away as the contractor dont pay taxes....YOU DO! Further more...You are going to pay a premium tax for the privilage of being SELF EMPLOYED!! Yes...you are consigered self employed working for a contractor at FEDEX.

4. THERE IS NO BENEFITS!! Thats right....no vacation, no medical, no retirement....NOTHING!!

5. When you finally get fed up with being over worked and underpaid and come to your senses.... Dont expect to get job verification from their offices. THEY DONT DO IT! I went over to their terminal the other day to find out how to list them on my resume. I was told that the contractor is whom you use for job verification. Well...these guys are usually working the routes and get irritated to be interupted by phone calls.

6. Be ready to furnish your 1099 forms to potential employers as proof that you worked for this company. For me it turned out to be the only way to verify that I ever worked for them.

The guy that I worked for wanted me there at 5:30AM (when he got there) and I never finished the route until about 5:30PM each day... I was delivering approx 130 stops a day with an additional 20-25 pick ups in the afternoon. I lumpped out 500-600 boxes daily Monday through Friday.... on the weekends...I was too dam tired to do anything. do the math....making 10 bucks an hour to do this...isnt worth it.

When I did my 2007 taxes...I OWED THE IRS $4000.00 for the privalage of being self employed....it wasnt worth it.

 

I ran For Fedex Ground last year. all you need is a years experience and if You have graduated from a trucking school that they aprove thats considered a years experience. as far as finding a job with fedex ground you will most likely have to go to a Fedex hub. ive been to them all. they have a ton of what they cal satelite hubs which are very small but help to ease loads in lower populated areas. you wil need to find a Main Hub. charlotte,Lenexa,St.paul,Orlando,Rialto,Dallas/ftworth,Phoenix,Portland,Seattle,hagerstown, pittsburg,atlanta,etc.

you will have to contact them to get in contact with a contractor. you will work for them. on average most will pay 40 cents to the truck and all Fed ex Ground for the most part is Team Driving. right now is the best time to get in because they are starting to get busy. Hope this helps. if you have any more questions about the job let me know. its a decent gig but like anything else it can be sucky at times

and you need a doubles triples endorsement. once in awhile you will get lucky and be able to haul a 53' footer but not very often

 

If it's worth it to bust yer but off,speed all the time etc.
I see a lot of those doubles/triples in ditches in winter for sure,most likely because they went to fast for conditions. Not worth it to me to chance the job for $70,000+ a year just to lose it because of a rollover.
Then again I suppose the union saves their job and they can crash again,and again.

 

There is no union anywhere in fed ex, not that I have ever heard off..

 

The Teamsters are working on that. About time. FedEx needs to be union.

http://www.fedexwatch.com/

 

fedex Ground Lnehaul will never be union. i could see maybe the city drivers that actually deliver the packages to the doorstep but never the contractors. unless fedex is going actually run their own truck and i highly doubt that would happen. its cheaper for them to contract their freight!! but if they ever did i hope they do it soon

 

The pilots are union. The rest of us aren't.

 

I recently talked to my UPS delivery man about TT driver for them. They sometime
hire from there rank and file. Senority. But I did go there website UPS.COM.
It's not to say they won't hire outside there ranks.

 

UPS will hire temp TT drivers from June to Dec, but at end of Dec, you're let go. You can not go from temp TT to permanent. You can start temp on the brown trucks, hope to get kept on (that's allowed under union rules) and then through senority get transferred to TT. I was looking to do temp this year, but the economy squashed that. I am also looking into UPS freight.

 

Having recently talked about just these subjects with a local UPS 'Brown' HR manager, here's what I was told: Almost 100% of drivers start part-time loading trucks. UPS Brown prides themselves on promoting from within. From part-time loader, you progress to full-time, when it's available. From there, you can bid on delivery driver position, when those positions become available, and bidding is based on seniority. From delivery driver, you can bid on tt driver positions (feeder routes), again based on seniority. He did remember one driver (in his 30 yrs with UPS) that went from part-time loader to full time TT driver, just because no one else bid on the job. I've also heard, from very good sources, that most of the drivers that were promoted to TT or delivery within the past year or so, will likely end up loading trucks again next year because of the recession.