http://www.ledefaultsettlement.com
I just love it. Because a customer did not mark the weight in the weight section of a LX (letter express) envelope, they charged them the 5 pound rate! With big companies, ABX gives them a discount depending on volume. I used to work for ABX (Airborne Express) via several subcontractors. A LX (letter express) averaged, then, $14.50 to ship for around 8 ounces. Discount rates were like $9.50 or below. Pound rates went up considerably. ABX got greedy. (Like, that’s something new?)
Now, the driver usually collects and electronically scans in the packages and programs in the weight. If not marked, he estimates it, usually leaning heavily on the side of the customer. Overweight LXs were often charged at the 1 pound weight. ABX was a bastard to work for, especially if under a subcontractor. You not only had to obey the ABX rules but the subcontractors, which could cause conflict at times. ABX could get you fired even if the subcontractor didn’t want to do so by threatening to pull his contract or not allowing you to handle ABX freight or be on ABX property. (The contractor owns the vans, but ABX usually leases the stations, provides equipment, uniforms and the identification vehicle stickers.)
IF you got fired this way by ABX, you COULD NOT collect unemployment. Why? The subcontractor was your boss. HE DID NOT FIRE YOU. He was forced to lay you off or, technically, no longer had a position for you.
We were always pushed to move faster and faster, which resulted in tickets, which then resulted in our having to not only pay the ticket but having to pay for the drivers class to get it off of our licenses. Points on our licenses usually meant that the commercial carrier insurance for the subcontractor, if he wanted to keep you, had to pay an additional $2000 a year. ABX didn’t help at all in that area.
ABX liked using subcontractors because they are nonunion. Union workers got MUCH better treatment and pay than us nonunion slobs. The subcontractor I worked for, Piper Express, once told us that if we even tried to get the union in, he would cancel his contract, fire us all, then reopen under a new name and hire new drivers. We worked from like 8 in the morning until 7 at night. I, being part of the management team, wound up working 12 and 13 hour days. As salaried employees, we didn’t get time and a half overtime. On Saturdays, since there is a law requiring salaried employees to get some over time, the subcontractor actually CUT our hourly rate.
Plus, any damage to the vans that could not be proven to be done by someone else had to be paid for by the driver. Like dents and things.
In the rainy season down here, we wore raincoats we bought because ABX provided us with none. Once they discovered that, they sent down an order saying we could not wear unofficial rain gear – even though they had none. So we ordered bright yellow flight line rain suits, and after wearing them for a time, we were ordered not to do so as they were ONLY for flight line usage. So, we got soaked and then they biatched about our wet manifests. In the winter, when it got real cold, we were limited in the types of jackets Airborne would allow us to buy, being in the South. So on real cold days we wore our own coats, until ABX found out and forbid us to do so.
Now and then, in our drop boxes, Federal Express envelopes might be found. Since our boxes and theirs were usually side by side, customers made errors. Us drivers usually carried the package until we found a FedEx driver and gave it to him/her. The owner of Piper Express, the ABX subcontractor (who himself was a retired ABX executive AND a part time MINISTER) ordered us, if we found such packages, to slap an ABX bill of lading on them and charge full rate and ship them ABX.
All that would do is generate confusion for FedEx and anger for the shipper at us. So us drivers, when we found such packages, ignored his orders and continued to give them to FedEx drivers.
The subcontractors area manager taught us how to cheat on the times on our hand held scanners to make it look like our routes were being run fast when they weren’t because of overloading and too few drivers. Then, when they came out with second rate freight, that was to be delivered only in the afternoon, they wanted us to run our routes twice. Well, after 12:00 we were also getting pickups called in so we had to get them. So we were taught by the manager how to falsify our scanner records and told to deliver these special packages along with the others. (FedEx had drivers that delivered and OTHER drivers that picked up. It seemed like a dream to us.)
HOWEVER if you got caught, the subcontractor blamed it all on YOU!
By rigging our delivery records, it made the subcontractor look good when things were bad, but ABX would not approve his hiring another driver and putting on another truck unless we had many service failures. That usually meant months of the subcontractor being biatched at by ABX, having his contract threatened and the drivers harassed and threatened. They hassled me for a year and accused me of being lazy on my route and finally the subcontractor took me off of it and put me on another one, then discovered that he had to have two people delivering and picking up my original one. (Not that I ever got an apology or anything for being harassed for a year.) However, by lying on our delivery records, ABX did not know how bad things were until they got way out of hand and then they approved adding a driver, van and route, but by then the drivers were harassed into resigning and the customer base was pi$$ed off because of late service.
The way ABX had it set up was that they charged the customer, say, $14.00 for a LX, and the subcontractor got maybe $2.00 of that BUT as the volume went UP his percentage went DOWN! He might wind up shipping out twice as much freight and getting only $1.00 a package.
Very few subcontractors lasted long because once they negotiated their rates up to a certain level and increased service and volume for ABX, they would get terminated for some reason and a new subcontractor hired at a cheaper rate! Usually the contract was periodically up for bids and Piper Express got it by charging ONE PENNY under the much better and much bigger subcontractor who had it before him. (Remember, he was a retired ABX executive. No bid rigging here! (HA!) )
Now get this. We lost a lot of drivers, who used to go to FedEx for better pay and conditions and, naturally, they took some of their regular customers with them. Some FedEx drivers came to work for ABX. So FedEx and ABX got together and made a deal. THEY WOULD HIRE NO DRIVERS FROM EACH OTHER UNTIL AFTER THEY HAD BEEN GONE A YEAR!
We drove shiat Ford vans, whose front ends went out when you ran over a pebble, so they were in the shop a lot getting realigned. When the subcontractor biatched about the costs and threatened us, we stopped getting them realigned. So we tore up tires and rotated them. The subcontractor biatched about us ‘driving too badly’ because his tire bill was going up and threatened to start charging us for new tires. Yet, when we drove the speed limit and more carefully, he biatched at us for not meeting service times and threatened to fire us. So we didn’t change them, until a cop stopped a driver who was running on bald tires with the cord showing and threatened to have the van towed and impounded as unsafe. THEN we went back to getting new tires.
I was there for 10 years and worked for 3 subcontractors. By the time I left, still being part of the management team, I was making a little over $10 an hour. Over the whole area covered by ABX subcontractors in the state, I estimated that I outlasted 2000 drivers! I had gotten into 5 accidents – 4 not my fault. I had paid out $450 in tickets and drivers school.
ABX union drivers in the northern states were making $14.00 an hour as just drivers! PLUS they had insurance – we did not, AND they were not allowed to drive off over loaded as we had to.
I’ve noticed the new subcontractors driving around down here, windows open in the hot, humid summers, so that means the subcontractor probably is saving money by buying vans with no A/C.
So, if Airborne Express is being sued, I hope the plaintiffs win.