As you know, FedEx has been waging a high-priced and disingenuous propaganda war against an amendment to the FAA Reauthorization bill which would place FedEx Express drivers under the same labor law as every other express delivery driver in the country. However, this attempt to benefit from special treatment under the law isn’t anything new to FedEx.

For years FedEx has been paying many of its drivers as “independent contractors” rather than “employees.” This practice results in lower labor costs and gives the company a financial advantage over its competitors, so it’s understandable why the company desperately wishes to continue doing so.

The same reason it’s fighting so hard against efforts to close the FedEx Loophole.

California’s Second Court of Appeals left no doubt as to whether or not FedEx’s drivers are independent contractors under existing law. “We affirm the finding that the drivers are employees,” said the court, adding that the drivers “look like FedEx employees, act like FedEx employees, are paid like FedEx employees, and receive many employee benefits.”

Case closed.

And yet FedEx continues its efforts to treat its employees as independent contractors, an abuse which Richard Samp of the Washington Legal Foundation says is “threatening the viability of the entire independent contractor model by providing regulators with the ammunition they need to justify efforts to expand the definition of employee.”

Indeed, FedEx’s single-minded insistence on calling a duck a giraffe holds out the potential to dramatically harm the true independent contractor community nationwide.

Similarly, if they look like express delivery drivers and act like express delivery drivers, shouldn’t FedEx Express’s express delivery drivers be treated under the same labor law as every other express delivery drivers? Why should FedEx be allowed to continue gaming the system and abusing the nation’s labor laws to the detriment of its competitors?

It’s time for Congress to show FedEx exactly what “equal justice under law” means.