@bigkid posted:They aren't. Fed Ex and UPS people are employees of the company, not contractors (they may use temp workers at high volume times of the year, like now, but that is not contractors), and the idea that a logistics company like UPS and Fedex would allow having no set schedule and showing up when they wanted is quite frankly mind boggling. Both of them are known for their logistics (both companies have as far as I know a service division that sells their supply chain logistics to outside companies, act as consultants, etc). The way delivery systems work that would be sheer chaos, when they have to coordinate stuff flying in from someplace, getting offloaded, possibly flown or trucked another place. There is a whole branch of math called path theory that governs getting things from point A to point B, that governs delivery of packages and messages on a computer network. I know Fedex does hire contracting firms in some cases for final delivery, or they use USPS, but again that is a very different thing, those involve contracts with a firm that has SLA's with it and so forth.
I suspect what this refers to is that Amazon has its own delivery service, but it also hires outside delivery firms to deliver for them (as well as UPS, Fedex or USPS), lot of those 'white vans' are outside services. Again, though, it isn't having people working for them who come in when they want, do what they want when they want to.
Sorry but this isn't totally accurate. Remember that FedEx is actually several companies under the FedEx umbrella. FedEx Express, FedEx Freight and FedEx Ground all are subsidiaries of FedEx Corporation. FedEx Ground drivers are primarily owner/operators, independent contractors who control individual delivery routes and territories (just do a google search). Also, I have a friend who is a FedEx Ground owner/operator. He started with one truck and one route when FedEx Ground started at RPS Package back in the late 1980s. Today he has contracts for many delivery routes.
