FedEx tells small contractors it won’t negotiate collectively

FedEx Corp’s head of ground unit operations told contractors that deliver packages for it that the company will only negotiate individually with them and that any effort to discuss financial terms as a group is a breach of their contracts, according to a memo seen Wednesday by Bloomberg News.

• The memo from ground unit chief John Smith comes after a large contractor last week urged FedEx to boost payments to make up for rising costs and warned contractors would form a 10-person committee to negotiate with the company
• “FedEx Ground will not discuss, negotiate, or renegotiate service provider agreements or financial terms with a committee or any individual purporting to represent a collective body of service provider businesses,” the memo says
• FedEx uses some 6,000 small, independently run companies for ground delivery of its packages throughout the US and Canada