Could be. Anyone that was in this prior that bought up planning to do that would not be too wise. Minimum 2-3 years before you could plan to "flip" something like this. Need to forecast all the individuals that group together selling off (since there is probably a 95% chance that ends in a train wreck year 1) as well as the failures that can't figure it out or try to cut all the corners. You have to be able to outlast all of those situations where the supply and demand come back to your favor before planning on turning it for decent profit.
FedEx Ground
- Thread starter Jakeem Simon
- Start date
Yes. You're getting it now.
And the number of potential challengers, the number of people who would bring suit against the ISP model is far smaller than that which sued against the IC model. Courts will not tell X they cannot use a contractor model. Individuals will lack the money to do so and the class for a class action suit is diminished.
Sam: you seem awfully confident in that analogy given that your contract contains no exit strategy or contingency plan if in the event things don't go exactly as you envision them which could leave you with a parking lot full of trucks which due to their design have limited alternative uses.
It's called blind love
Is that how you did business bacha? Always worried about exit strategies and "worst case scenarios"?
Actually it's called "business". After 23 years I would have thought you'd caught on.
When you are beholding to a company to the extent that you are Bsam, when they not you have total control over the things that truly matter you damn well better have in place an exit strategy . A way to get out without incurring irreversible economic loss. An absolute necessity given that your contract contains no language to that effect.
If it's really as 'business' and that's debatable and a party other than yourself holds all the cards and you are beholding to that party then in the normal conduct of doing business not having a way to exit that business in a way that benefits or at least minimizes the losses is in my opinion not a true business man.
Actually incorporating a business is in fact aiming to minimize losses for the individual.
Now, I have to ask you detractors of the model: do you believe that X WANTS to get away from contracting?
If yes, they could have instead of going to ISP.
If not, what will force them to abandon contracting?
Continued legal challenges? Why? They've been handling that for decades. Even with large payouts, their margins are still impressive and their expansion nearly exponential.
I could see one way they would abandon it. Congressional action to ban contracting or at least make it far less profitable. Anyone see that coming out of Washington.? I don't.
Now let's be perfectly clear; I truly hope this doesn't come crashing down. I do have quite quickly bit of money invested in it. But realistically, I don't think and I don't believe anyone looking at the facts can believe that this model is going anywhere soon. As for the nit picky stupid crap that X pulls, the stuff that dmac and MFE and bacha insist make me not independent, I can only shrug my shoulders. Yeah it's a nuisance but a minor one. I've been doing this for 22 years and I'm good at it, it pays well, and I get a lot of time to do whatever I want.
Could it all be gone tomorrow? Sure. I think it's a safe bet it's here for a much longer time than some of you want to believe.
In for a dime, in for a dollar.
I hope that when/if X has to pay millions out all the current and past "contractors" get major $. As I said in the past you are not my enemy X is.
I hope if that day comes I'll get a huge payday too. Until then, the paydays are pretty ok.
Going forward the question is, what can be done to establish a set of contract terms that recognizes the fact that contractors are investing large and growing larger sums of money and places that investment on the same footing as that of the shareholders? The real message that contractors must convey to the company is that they are tired of not having a voice when it comes to the future direction of that company as well as the company continuing to ignore the fact that their decision to convert to ISP requires contractors to put more money at risk.
Fedex doesn't care about the contractor model. All they care about is costs. As soon as it costs less to have employees, they will. If turnover gets too high, service is too poor, ISP contractors win a court case, customers revolt against driver treatment by switching carriers, or a multitude of other reasons could cause fedex to change. Even the stockholders could vote their conscience to force a change. The ISP system is really just a system where fedex hires 'independent' managers to hire drivers who are employees anyway. At some point they may think that they can manage a lot better and a lot more cheaply than paying a separate manager for each few routes.
The nit picky stuff we mention isn't just a nuisance. They are the reasons a judge could look at the system and claim it is illegal. All it will take is just a couple of ISP contractors to file a class action. Just your thinking that we are mentioning nuisances means you don't see the bigger picture- that your investment could be gone with one court case.
It will be fine
Well-Known Member
The teamsters are a big reason why this is unlikely. Even including legal costs fedex is saving boat loads over paying union wages. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of an organizing campaign if FedEx decided to hire their own employees to deliver, but I believe their fear is very real. Most of your reasons listed are unrealistic, they don't care about my turnover rate, the don't really care about poor service, customers have no clue how we're treated. Stockholders voting their conscience? What decade are you living in? The status quo is most likely, they'll lose some legal battles, adjust the model and wait to lose some more, all the while making obscene profits and growing at a crazy rate.
Uh, they care about the contractor model BECAUSE of the costs. Why you haven't understood this at this current point in the game says a lot.
Not going to happen.
LOL their margins in Ground don't support this one bit.
They do care about turnover because high turnover leads to poorer service and higher costs to you. And if you can't make it, then they need to get a new manager and have poorer service while he/she gets up to speed. And yes- the union is the biggest reason for using ISPs. But eventually, with ISPs getting larger, the Teamsters will start going after the ISP.
And with wages approaching $15 an hour, there is less pressure on drivers to want to unionize. But the nation as a whole is getting fed up (excuse me) with employers paying wages that require the worker to get federal aid to survive. Low wage employers whose workers qualify for food stamps(SNAP) or medicaid are getting their profits subsidized by taxpayers. Why should taxpayers help support your workers?
