The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that a group of FedEx Home Delivery drivers in Windsor, CT, are employees and thus eligible to vote in an upcoming election being held by Teamsters Local Union 671.
Peter Hoffman, director of the NLRB’s Region 34, rejected FedEx’s position that those drivers are contractors and thus ineligible to vote on whether to unionize or not.
“The [contractor’s] agreement is presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis,” he wrote in his decision. “Although the agreement states the mutual intention of the parties to reduce the geographic size of a contract driver’s route if there is an increase in customer and package volume, only [FedEx] retains the right to unilaterally determine and reconfigure a driver’s territory.”
He noted that this decision is the fifth since November 2004 to find these FedEx drivers to be employees under the National Labor Relations Act.