A few weeks ago a settlement of courier worker misclassifcation lawsuit came through the newswire so I readied my pen….er keyboard for what I thought was surely going to be another Fedex ripping. Let me start by saying that I’m not some Fedex hater. They’re just an easy misclassification target that provides good fodder for discussion. That being said, I was shocked to read that the courier in brown was the one opening up it’s pocketbook.
On December 4th a federal judge approved a $12.8 million settlement in a class action settlement in which UPS couriers sued for being improperly classified as independent contractors. The couriers claimed that they were denied benefits and overtime yet UPS controlled all aspects of their employment relationship. The class action settlement is set to affect some 660 class members.
The latest settlement comes at a time when Brown is in the midst of a $100 million class action lawsuit that was filed in August over not paying OT to account managers who instead were classified as exempt. Up until now, Brown had done a good job of playing possum by allowing Fedex to shine in the negative workplace spotlight. Should there be a settlement in the $100 million class action suit, there stands to be negative marks on the courier that some people consider to be the model citizen of the courier industry. Meanwhile somewhere in Memphis, Tennessee, the folks at FedEx have to be sitting back and enjoying the fact that the spotlight is, for once, not on them. It has to be extra gratifying to know that all of the bad press is aimed at their chief rival.
Whether or not UPS is the new posterboy for worker misclassification is still too early to tell. If they’re smart, they”ll apply the courts findings to their business model. Let’s hope UPS decides to listed to the courts decision by admitting to their wrongdoings and working to correct the problems. It would be a far different approach than the one taken by their FedEx rivals.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Law, Misclassification. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.