ETF Announces Action Day against FedEx’s 2000 planned layoffs

The European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) fully supports the strikes called by its affiliates FILT-CGIL, FIT-CISL, and UILTRASPORTI, in the context of a day of action for all direct FedEx workers on July 22, 2024.

This action, titled “Action for FedEx Workers,” aims to mobilise against FedEx’s proposed job cuts across Europe, amounting to approximately 2000 layoffs. Actions at the workplace level are being considered in other European countries where FedEx is planning to dismiss workers.

ETF has expressed strong concerns about FedEx’s plans for the following reasons:

1. Ongoing Job Cuts: In some countries, this is the fourth round of redundancies initiated by FedEx in recent years. ETF condemns the continued reliance on layoffs as a solution to organisational challenges, asserting that this approach unfairly burdens workers.
2. Unfair Reorganization Processes: ETF criticises the company’s inability to find organisational solutions that do not disproportionately impact employees. The federation highlights the outsourcing of services to countries with lower labour costs, showing that the company’s competitive strategy is based on a race to the bottom which disregards its current employees.
3. Lack of a Sustainable Industrial Plan: ETF points out the absence of a coherent industrial strategy that would ensure the growth and stability of FedEx instead of resorting to repeated job cuts.

Those concerns were addressed in a letter ETF General Secretary Livia Spera sent to Wouter Roels, President of FedEx Express Europe. In the letter, ETF also called for immediate negotiations and the disclosure of comprehensive information regarding the planned job cuts, disaggregated by country and job function.

FedEx is a key player in the logistics sector and employs tens of thousands of workers across Europe. The sector as a whole is characterised by insecure employment as a result of the widespread use of subcontracting and temporary contracts to reduce costs. There is an urgent need for robust planning at national and European level to develop this vital sector coherently and sustainably.

ETF is working closely with trade unions that represent warehouse and delivery workers across Europe to shed light on poor working conditions in the sector and to strengthen collective bargaining rights.