Just retired after 34 years at FedEx EXPRESS. There is a difference.
Like it was said earlier FedEx ground is contractors who are working for somebody else who are not FedEx employees. Most of the time they do not have any benefits whatsoever, no vacation no medical, no pension or 401K. They're employees of the contractor. When FedEx took over RPS they basically slapped FedEx ground on the side of the trucks. Those drivers started suing FedEx to become employees like Express. FedEx was losing in court and came up with the idea of we're not going to renew your contract unless you have five or more routes so if you didn't sell your route or buy four more you weren't going to have anything. This also squashed any Union possibilities for ground.
FedEx loves the contractor model, they have a fixed cost per package and all of the operating burdens are on the ground operator. Employees, trucks, maintenance, benefits. All off of the books of the main FedEx.
Over the last few years the push has been to divert even more packages to the ground side and dilute Express. Covid put a monkey wrench into that for a while but it's going that way again.
They constantly try to micromanage stop and areas. DRA (dynamic route assignment) and now EStar. They don't work but if you throw enough money at it they seem to think it will. Like your driver now? Don't get too comfortable, they want plug and play people.
FedEx is not union. They've thrown enough money to keep it that way.
When I started back in 1988 we were $1 an hour away from UPS for salary, and benefits were somewhat close. When I retired, UPS was making over $10 an hour more than we were, still with great benefits. I was paying close to $500 a month for benefits that are a joke for a billion-dollar company. I have better benefits now that I'm retired than I did when I was working.
Pension you ask? New people don't get one now, just a 401K match.
Another issue they were having along with hiring people is legalized marijuana. To get a driving job you need to be able to pass a drug test. With marijuana being legal, it's way harder to find someone who can pass a drug test. I'm not sure, but I don't think ground drivers have to pass that test. Because they're working for a contractor not FedEx.
The people I worked with delivered was pride especially the old timers. The people coming in now figure out pretty quickly that the pay and benefits aren't where they should be and that this is just a bridge until the next job. Some of the guys at the top of seniority are too far in to go now.
We had a district director come in and say that the people that come in the door now stay 1-5 years, she actually turned around to someone in the meeting who was there 5 years and said what are you still doing here? That person woke up after that and was gone within 6 months.
We always would see ground drivers walking around out of uniform, driving with their driver side door open and no seat belt on. That was always a huge no no for Express. They can't even get them to put the seat belt on and close the driver side door.
Trust me when I say most of the FedEx Express drivers that I know never want to be lumped in with Ground.
It's tough to even choose express service anymore because you can pay for Express and they can still route it to ground.
Now that Fred Smith is pretty much out of the picture, I wouldn't have very high hopes for the future. Keep calling and asking for those refunds!