FedEx Freight workers in New Jersey vote to be represented by Teamsters

Drivers at the South Brunswick, N.J., terminal of FedEx Freight, FedEx Corp.'s less-than-truckload (LTL) unit, voted today to be represented by Local 701 of the Teamsters Union.

The vote comes a little more than two weeks after 47 drivers at FedEx Freight in Croydon, Pa., outside of Philadelphia, voted to join the Teamsters. The vote in Croydon marked the first time that workers at the FedEx unit had voted for union representation.

Meanwhile, the Teamsters on Oct. 30 withdrew their petition for FedEx Freight workers at the company's Middletown, Pa., facility north of Harrisburg to vote on representation. The vote was scheduled for the next day. Generally, a union will not withdraw a petition so close to the voting date unless it felt it could not win the election.

FedEx Freight has made no secret of its antiunion animus, saying that a better course of action would be for workers and management to directly address grievances rather than go through a third-party bargaining unit.