Charlotte FedEx Freight Workers Decertify Teamsters Representation
FedEx Freight workers in Charlotte, N.C., have reversed course and voted not to unionize.
City and road drivers at a FedEx Freight service center voted to decertify the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as their bargaining representative.
FedEx ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest North American for-hire carriers.
The Charlotte terminal was one of the union’s victories during a hotly contested organizing campaign in 2014.
A statement from FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey about the Charlotte vote said in part: “We are pleased with these results and continue to believe that our thriving, competitive work environment provides a more flexible, team-oriented, and customer-focused work model than the union can offer.”
McCluskey said city and road drivers at the FedEx Freight service center in Croydon, Pennsylvania recently filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to decertify the Teamsters union as their bargaining representative. The vote is scheduled for July 19.
Pilots are FedEx’s only major domestic work group covered by a collective bargaining agreement, although the Teamsters union has waged a protracted battle to unionize workers in other operating units.
The effort to organize FedEx Freight centers one at a time has yet to produce a labor contract at any of the centers that supported the Teamsters.
“We have no collective bargaining agreements at any FedEx Freight location,” FedEx Freight communications Director Michele Ehrhart said.
A Facebook page, Bring the Teamsters to FedEx Freight, said the Teamsters began negotiating with FedEx Freight last June, after a series of delays, for a contract covering workers at an East Philadelphia terminal.
