Tag: FedEx

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‘Pork Report’ Takes Aim at FedEx, Wiseacre, Wharton, Bluff City Law

CREDIT: Beacon Center of Tennessee

Beacon Center of Tennessee

The Bacon Center, a Nashville-based, free-market think tank lambasted several Memphis and Shelby County projects in the group’s annual Pork Report.

The 2019 report is the 14th from Beacon seeks to expose ”government waste, fraud, and abuse.”

”While the Pork Report is a fun and creative outlet for our team to expose the top 25 most ridiculous instances of government spending in the past year, it is also a call to action to the state and local governments to cut the waste from their budgets,” reads the report. “After all, it is state and local taxpayers who are funding all of the ’pork’ found in this year’s report.”

Below are the top examples of Memphis-area “pork” Beacon cited this year:

FedExcellent at Taking Tax Dollars

LRK/FedEx Logistics

“The Memphis-Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) board, the entity formed to bring business into the city, instead continues to redistribute the tax dollars of hard-working Memphians to enormous corporations.

In one of its worst moves ever (which is really saying something if you have seen its other handouts), EDGE is giving FedEx $2 million to move its company’s headquarters from one part of Memphis to another. This is in addition to the $10 million from the state and $1 million from the Center City Development Board.

So in total, FedEx got $14 million of taxpayer money to move a few miles. The point of economic development is supposedly to bring new companies to the area, not give hard-earned tax dollars to huge corporations to move down the street.”

Bluff City Naw
Jake Giles Netter/NBC

Going straight — Caitlin McGee (left) and Jimmy Smits play father-daughter attorney duo at the Strait Law Firm.

What do you think about forking over $4.25 million of your hard-earned money to Hollywood?

We’re not bluffing. After spending more than $50 million on the canceled “Nashville” TV show, the government continues to pump money into the TV business. This year’s feature is “Bluff City Law,” a new NBC series based in Memphis.

Study after study shows that film and TV incentives have a horrendous return on investment, bringing in as little as seven cents for every dollar spent. This is a fairytale for Hollywood elites, as the overwhelming majority of tax dollars spent on these incentives wind up in their pockets, not local workers’.

At least temporarily, because most of these shows don’t last very long. “Bluff City Law” only filmed 10 episodes before pumping the brakes this fall.

Memphis Tax Dollars are Leaving the Building

In another example of a company holding a city hostage and leaving taxpayers all shook up, the Memphis City Council authorized $75 million in incentives for Graceland, Elvis’ historic mansion.

This came on the heels of veiled threats by the management company to actually move Graceland brick by brick from Memphis. The council’s only stipulation was that Graceland couldn’t build an auditorium or theater to compete with the city’s other taxpayer-funded arena, FedExForum. Apparently, they have to draw the line on giving away taxpayer money somewhere!

This isn’t even the first time that Graceland has pocketed taxpayer money. It received $21 million back in 2015. When will Memphis taxpayers realize their leaders ain’t no friend of theirs and call for fiscal restraint?


The Next Round is on Memphis Taxpayers

Wiseacre Brewing Co.

Wiseacre’s soon-to-be Downtown location rises from the ground along B.B. King.

Lots of guys love to brew their own beer. It’s like a science experiment at home that you can drink!

While it’s not a very labor-intensive hobby, it sure can get expensive. Between equipment and ingredients, it can add up quick. Too bad most didn’t think to get a $1.7 million property tax subsidy like Wiseacre Brewing Co. did from Memphis.

Sure, most of us don’t brew professionally, but here’s the problem: many others in Memphis do. Do a quick search and you’ll find a handful of microbreweries that now have to pay higher property taxes to subsidize their competition.

Everybody loves the guy who brings free beer to the party. Too bad Memphis taxpayers will have to pay even more money to try the beer they already paid for.

Enemies in High Places

Garth Brooks sang about his appreciation for friends in low places, yet Memphis resident Kareema McCloud probably never thought about having enemies in high places.

But that is exactly what happened when her neighbor, former mayor of both Memphis and Shelby County, A.C. Wharton, found out she was legally renting out rooms in her home through Airbnb.

Interactions caught on McCloud’s security camera showed Wharton and a barrage of government officials from at least six agencies showing up at her home day after day to hassle her. This included a three-day police stakeout at McCloud’s home on the unfounded claim that she was not running an Airbnb, but a brothel.

While a Memphis spokesman stated that anyone can call and complain about a neighbor, it is hard to dismiss that Wharton’s political connections brought about more scrutiny — and more wasted tax dollars — than the average citizen’s complaint. Let’s hope this political, taxpayer-funded bullying has been put to bed.

State Pork DepART- ment

Tennessee Arts Commission

Another year, another multi-million- dollar check written for the Tennessee Arts Commission. This year brought over $6.5 million in tax dollars for the Arts Commission to increase participation in all areas of the arts, including music.

However, with Memphis and Nashville as two of the main cities where everyone from aspiring musicians to incredibly successful artists move to, it begs the question as to why state government continues to fund music awareness through the Arts Commission.

If you speak to anyone from Tennessee, chances are they personally know a musician. Speak to someone from the Tennessee Arts Commission, you’ll probably hear about their large budget. Even in a state with amazing artistic talent, wasted tax dollars will always be a sour note.

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Podcast?
 Shelby County Commission

At the Beacon Center, we are pretty familiar with what it takes to get a podcast started.

Do you know what it doesn’t take? Over $100,000. Apparently Shelby County didn’t get that memo. County officials approved a $109,800 contract to produce a podcast where they talk about county commission meetings. But commission meetings themselves are already streamed live online, so why the need for more?

It’s hard to imagine people wanting to hear play-by-play coverage enough to justify that expense. Hey Shelby County, if you’re looking for a great podcast to fund, check out Beacon’s “Decaf” podcast. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

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News News Blog

U of M to Launch Commercial Aviation Program This Fall

CREDIT: CIT

CIT

Crew Training International instructor working with students

The University of Memphis will begin training pilots this fall with a new commercial aviation program.

The university is partnering with Millington’s Crew Training International (CTI) Professional Flight Training to offer a Bachelor of Science in Commercial Aviation degree.

David Rudd, U of M president said the Commercial Aviation program is meant to prepare students for 21st-century jobs and better position them for opportunities at companies like Fedex Express.

“There will be ample demand for qualified, well-trained pilots in the coming decades, and this program and partnership will help U of M students become top candidates for these careers,” Rudd said.

Students in the program will receive 61 credit hours of professional aviation training, and 59 hours of classroom instruction including courses in business and management. The degree is meant to prepare graduates for careers in corporate and general aviation, other aviation-related businesses, airport operations, and government regulation of aviation.

With a bachelor’s degree in aviation, a graduate’s required number of flight hours to become a commercial pilot decreases by 500.

The program also gives veterans an opportunity to use post-9/11 benefits for flight training costs, now that the U of M is partnering with CTI. Additionally, high school students in the Aviation Study program at T-STEM Academy East High School are expected to “naturally and locally progress into the U of M’s program.”

This will create an “exciting local path that has a global impact,” Jim Bowman, senior vice president of flight operations for Fedex said.

The program will be “uniquely positioned” to support the needs of the local community and address the “looming” pilot shortage. The U of M reports that more than 42 percent of active U.S. airline pilots will retire over the next 10 years. Boeing estimates that in the next 20 years, North American airlines need 117,000 new pilots.

Bowman said as the aviation industry evolves, aviators have to be more tech savvy and better prepared academically than before.

“I’m excited that the University of Memphis is now part of the path to a successful career in the aviation industry, and I congratulate the university’s leadership for having the foresight to create this program,” Bowman said.

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Memphis Gaydar News

FedEx’s Attempt to Throw Out Lawsuit Over Widow’s Pension Benefits Denied

Memphis-based FedEx is being sued by a widow of a long-time employee, after she was denied pension benefits because the two were in a same-sex marriage, and on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied the company’s attempt to have that lawsuit thrown out.

California woman Stacey Schuett, the widow of 26-year FedEx employee Lesly Taboada-Hall, filed the lawsuit against the company last January after it refused to provide her with federally required spousal pension benefits. Taboada-Hall had been the family breadwinner and supported Schuett and their two children, but she passed away in June 2013 after a battle with uterine cancer.

FedEx’s pension plan was designed when the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was still the law of the land, but DOMA was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor on June 26, 2013.

The federal court on Monday ruled that “following Windsor … ERISA plans, by definition, must treat couples in same-sex marriages as married for purposes of spousal benefits prescribed under ERISA, such as survivor benefits.”

FedEx scored an 85 out of 100 on the 2015 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. It failed to reach 100 due to its lack of transgender healthcare benefits.

“It is shocking to me that a company that pays lip service to diversity and the importance of its employees refuses to recognize our family,” said Schuett in a press release from the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “My wife earned her benefits during her decades of service to the company. No employer should be permitted to ignore our families and refuse to provide the hard-earned benefits of dedicated and skilled employees like Lesly.”

Said NCLR Senior Staff Attorney Amy Whelan: “Companies that claim to support diversity, as FedEx does, should be celebrating the downfall of DOMA, not trying to resurrect it for widows of FedEx employees who are fighting to receive the basic benefits their spouses earned during decades of service to the company.”

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Memphis Gaydar News

Memphis Law Firm Gets Perfect Score in Equality Index, AutoZone Scores Low

A Memphis law firm, FedEx, and First Horizon scored well in this year’s Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index, while International Paper and AutoZone fell toward the bottom of the list.

Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC scored a perfect 100, making it one of only two major corporations and/or law firms in Tennessee with a perfect score. The other was Nissan North America Inc. in Franklin.

That means the company prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, has vendor/contractor standards that don’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity, offers partner health insurance, has other “soft” benefits for partners, offers transgender-inclusive health coverage, has organizational competency programs, has a firm-wide diversity council or LGBT employee group, and positively engages the external LGBT community.

FedEx scored high with an 85 percent. The main thing that kept FedEx from scoring higher was its lack of transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage. First Horizon Corp. also scored an 85 percent. 

International Paper scored a 25 percent, and AutoZone scored a 10 percent. The only LGBT-friendly policy at AutoZone is one prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In total, 851 companies across the country were officially rated in the 2016 index, up from 781 in the 2015 report. The average score for companies and law firms based in Tennessee is 69 percent. Of the 12 Tennessee companies ranked, two earned 100 percent, and four earned 80 percent or above.

“Corporate America has long been a leader on LGBT equality, from advocating for marriage equality to expanding essential benefits to transgender employees,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “But this year, many leading U.S. companies have broken new ground by expanding explicit non-discrimination protections to their LGBT workers around the globe. They’ve shown the world that LGBT equality isn’t an issue that stops at our own borders, but extends internationally.”

To see the full index, go here.

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Memphis Gaydar News

FedEx Scores High, AutoZone Scores Low on Equality Index

The Human Rights Campaign’s 2015 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) assessed LGBT inclusion in a number of major companies and law firms in Memphis. 

The CEI ranks companies on a scale of 1 (worst) to 100 (best) based on non-discrimination policies, employment benefits, demonstrated organizational competency and accountability around LGBT diversity and inclusion, public commitment to LGBT equality, and responsible citizenship.

Memphis-based FedEx Corp. and local law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz tied with for high scores of 85, while AutoZone Corp. received a low score of 15.

FedEx’s non-discrimination policy covers sexual orientation and gender identity. They offer domestic partner benefits, and their insurance covers transgender health benefits, such as hormone therapy and short-term leave after surgical procedures. They have an LGBT employee group, and they actively market to LGBT consumers.

AutoZone does have a non-discrimination policy regarding sexual orientation, but gender identity is not covered. The company also fails to offer domestic partner benefits, and it lacks an LGBT employee group.

Other Memphis companies on the list scored as follows: First Horizon National Corp. (75), Unum Group (60), and International Paper (45).

Nationally, a record 366 businesses scored perfect 100s. The only Tennessee company to score a 100 was Nissan North America, Inc. in Smyrna. 

“When it comes to LGBT equality, Corporate America is a leader, not a follower,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “At every turn, from advocating for marriage equality to providing vital support for transgender employees, this country’s leading companies have asked, ‘what more can we do?,’ and they’ve worked tirelessly to achieve new progress. That kind of leadership changes countless lives around this country, and sets an important example to other companies around the globe.”

            

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Editorial Opinion

Pride in St. Jude

Back in the heyday of Plough, Inc., there used to be giant billboards all over Memphis advertising one of the locally based corporation’s most well-known products. “St. Joseph’s Aspirin,” the signs would proudly proclaim. “Memphis Makes. The World Takes.”

And yes, those billboards and that message did generate a fair amount of pride of place among us locals, even though we knew that St. Joseph, as a brand, would never overtake the industry monolith, Bayer. And, indeed, it never has, though it continues to exist, after a change in geography and ownership, as a low-dose brand, well-advertised online.

In any case, it was something we locals could boast about, in the same way that we once boasted about Holiday Inn, the giant hotel chain that was founded in Memphis and for many, many years run from here. Ditto with AutoZone, which continues to be headquartered in its birthplace, in a handsome downtown building overlooking the mighty Mississippi.

And there is FedEx, yet another Memphis creation that connects the whole wide world with the cargo shipments that come and go from the company’s massive footprint here.

International Paper, another widely known mega-corporation, was born elsewhere and is a transplant to Memphis, but it is nevertheless a major player on our cityscape. And, we’d be remiss not to mention Graceland, home of the the most iconic entertainer ever, and either the first- or second-most visited residence in America, depending on which survey you read.

This list could go on for a while. But there is one other treasure known to those of us who live here and who admire its service to the world: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which is as famous as Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York and John Hopkins in Baltimore and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and may be doing more valuable therapeutic and research work than any or all of those other institutions.

The difference, which we keep discovering every time we ask about it, is that those who direct the marketing affairs of St. Jude have decided it is never to be mentioned or promoted in tandem with Memphis, its host city. And it never is. According to James R. Downing, president and CEO of St. Jude, there are no plans that it ever will be, despite the fact that, as Downing told the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday, the hospital plans a major expansion — one that will connect to affiliates elsewhere but will still have the same headquarters-to-network relationship to them as FedEx Memphis has to its ports and bases elsewhere. For this and the other great benefits St. Jude brings to our fair city, we are most grateful.

But still, it stings a bit that the world-renowned hospital’s hometown never gets a mention in its marketing campaigns. Downing did his best to explain: The hospital is meant to be regarded everyplace at once. It’s a marketing strategy that helps with donors. That may make sense to the marketing department, but not necessarily to Memphians, who understandably swell with pride knowing that St. Jude, as founder Danny Thomas ordained, does its remarkable work here.

We are somewhat comforted by a remark made about the research function of St. Jude by the legendary surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey: “To cure one child in Memphis is to cure a thousand children worldwide.” As a marketing slogan, it has a certain ring, we think.

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Opinion The BruceV Blog

FedEx’s Fred Smith: Tax Me.

FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith just threw some cold water on the GOP’s insistence that “taxing the rich” will hurt the economy.

Speaking on CNN, Smith called the idea that raising the tax rate for the nation’s top earners will hurt the economy “mythology.”

Huffington Post has the video.

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Opinion

Electric Vehicles: FedEx “yes,” buyers “no”

0405_fedex_630x420.jpg

Starkly different views on the future of electric vehicles from last week’s FedEx Investors and Lenders Meeting and from car buyers in Memphis and the rest of America.

Fuel-conscious FedEx is committed to electric vehicles as part of its strategy to lower costs and decrease reliance on fossil fuel. Last week during a question-and-answer session with analysts, David Bronczek, CEO of FedEx Express, said all-electric rather than hybrid electric vehicles “may be the best choice for us.” The company is interested in both, along with vehicles powered by natural gas as it strives to increase fuel efficiency.

The buying public is not very interested yet. That goes for drivers in Memphis, which was chosen in 2011 as one of the key sites for charging stations, and car buyers in general. Nissan moved manufacturing of the Nissan Leaf from Japan to Smyrna, Tennessee starting this year. The goal is 150,000 vehicles a year. The Chevy Volt runs on a battery made at a reopened GM plant in Detroit. Both electric cars can be purchased in Memphis for prices in the $30,000s for the 2012 model and more than $40,000 before rebates for the 2013 model.

Detroit newspapers (Go Tigers!) this week have been reporting the big flop by makers of electric vehicles and their batteries. Sales for all makers have been anemic, according to a story in the Detroit News. In the debates, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, while against high gas prices and for alternative energy sources, differed on the merits of grants for makers of electric cars and how whether subsidies went to a company in China.

There is nothing ambiguous about investor interest in electric cars. It has just about hit rock bottom. ECOtality, the publicly-traded (NASDAQ: ECTY) California-based company behind “The EV Project” in Memphis and other cities, is barely hanging on. Five years ago it was selling for $22 and in 2009, after it received a federal stimulus grant of $114.8 million, the price was $17. When ECOtality made its announcement in February of 2011 that it was expanding to Memphis, the stock was $4. Today it is 45 cents.

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Opinion

No Denying It: Memphis Will Take a FedEx Hit

Fred Smith

  • Fred Smith

“It’s been said many times that the only certainty in life is change. That’s been true in my life and the life of FedEx. No matter what’s happening in our industry now, it won’t be the same 10 years from now.”

So said FedEx founder Fred Smith in May in a speech to the Wings Club in New York City titled “Air Cargo: Back to the Future” that played off the 1985 movie with Michael J. Fox as time traveler Marty McFly. Someone thought enough of the speech to put it in a hardcover book distributed at the 2012 Investors and Lenders Meeting at the Hilton this week. Only 16 pages, including pictures and charts, it gives as concise a history of the forces that drove the growth of FedEx (and therefore Memphis indirectly) as you will find.

The Big Change (“a really big deal,” Smith said) coming up is the company’s plan to achieve $1.7 billion in annual profit improvement by the end of fiscal year 2016. The shareholders’ gain will, to some extent, be Memphis’s loss. A salaried FedEx employee who takes a voluntary buyout is probably a Shelby County resident with a six-figure family income, a house, maybe kids in private schools, possibly a Grizzlies season-ticket buyer, a leader in his or her community, a donor to charities, and someone with the mobility to move somewhere else. Multiply by several hundred and it’s a big ripple effect. More jobs at the SuperHub won’t offset that.

How big? Imagine if the news had been of a different nature. Substitute thousands of “hires” for “voluntary buyouts” and “expansion” for “cost reductions”. Keep the focus on Tennessee, and leave in the uncertainty about the timing and extent of the change if you like. Now imagine the reaction of local politicians and a chamber of commerce that was ready to break out the sombreros and the mariachi band for an expansion of air service to Mexico that never happened. Cartwheels, anyone?

If Memphis was a stock its price would be down today. How much? I’d say about five percent, which was roughly the increase in the price of FedEx stock on Wednesday after the opening salvos of the upbeat two-day conference for investors and lenders. Stock price, of course, reflects current and future earnings.

This week showed Fred Smith as salesman and head coach as well as CEO. He gave the keynote speech Tuesday night and moderated Wednesday’s closing panel discussion and Q & A with analysts. It was the founder of a great company giving his vision and putting his heart into it, like Steve Jobs at Apple or Bill Gates at Microsoft. There were Power Points for sure, but there were also flashes of humor, as when he said “Raymond who” to Raymond James analyst Art Hatfield, formerly of Morgan Keegan. There was testiness, as when, with eyes blazing like coals above a frown, he chided a questioner about his characterization of “decline, decline, decline” in one segment of FedEx’s business. But mostly there was confidence and an air of command on display before a group of analysts, many of whom looked like they weren’t born when Federal Express was founded in 1970.

“I don’t have any plans to retire at the moment, and I certainly want to see this plan through,” Smith said in response to a question Wednesday.

The stock market is about telling stories to analysts and lenders who can in turn tell them to brokers, investors and other lenders. FedEx top brass gave them a compelling story at a time when the domestic economy and its own stock is in a funk, and was rewarded with an immediate boost in its stock price and a spike in those fanciful but irresistible long-range “price targets” up to $150. FedEx breached $100 a share in 2006 and 2007 and has not crossed that milestone since. In 2009 you could have had it for $42. If you bought then, you’ve doubled your money, but if you’re a long time buy-and-hold investor the stock delivered modest returns.

For context, here are a few excerpts from Smith’s “Back to the Future” speech:

“The 747 air freighter gave air cargo a starring role in the air transportation system, instead of its being an after-thought in the underbellies of passenger planes. Now, finally, you had the plane to carry computers, electronics, and other high value perishables such as flowers across vast distances.”

“As the 747 began to dominate long-haul services, an upstart network called Federal Express began flying from Memphis in spring 1973 with less than 200 packages rattling around in 14 small Dassault Falcons going to 25 cities on its first day.”

“We understood at FedEx that information about the package is as important as the package itself, so we also originated the first tracking system.”

“There’s a cloud hanging over today’s industrial horizon — the high price of oil. I’ll never forget the effect of 1973’s embargo on a fledgling FedEx. We almost went under before we’d barely begun . . . In 1999 oil was $16 a barrel. In 2008 it was $147 a barrel — a 900% increase.”

“Let’s compare a 747 and a large container ship. For the ship it takes one ton of fuel to move 330 tons of cargo. For the plane, it takes about 330 tons of fuel to move the same amount of cargo . . . All those big ships are nibbling away at the air cargo business, and those bites will become bigger when the Panama Canal expansion is completed in 2014.”

“Bigger commodity consignments are increasingly moving by sea, and dedicated express networks and underbellies are capturing more urgent, lighter shipments. So in many ways the future of air cargo is akin to the early days of the industry.”

“The takeaway from this evolution of the air cargo industry is that the air express sector will continue to grown long-term as the integration of the world’s economies generate more small shipments moving directly from point of production to the end user.”

Categories
Opinion

Weekend Report: Egypt, International Paper, FedEx, and Susan Komen

Susan_G_Komen.jpg

Best line of the week: “Burger King,” by developer Henry Turley to the ambulance crew member who asked which hospital he wanted to be taken to after he passed out while chairing a board meeting for Sun Trust Bank this week. He blamed his fall on cold medications and a lack of breakfast and declined an overnight stay in the hospital. He is doing fine.

The CEOs of two of our biggest companies were in the news Thursday. On CNBC, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said the U.S. economy is growing but not at a rate high enough to absorb the increase in population. He recommended that the government enhance capital investment, keep exploring fuel sources not dependent on Middle Eastern nations, and change the tax code provisions that penalize profits made abroad. Smith said 43 percent of FedEx world management team is minorities and women. And he said the Post Office “is run by a very competent man who was in Memphis last week to talk to our managers.” That would be Patrick Donahoe.

An hour later, International Paper CEO John Faraci was on a web conference for IP’s fourth-quarter and annual financial report. He said IP had its “best financial results in almost two decades.” The company, which has some 2,400 employees in the Memphis area, transformed itself in 2010, selling its land portfolio, cutting costs, and preparing the way for $1.5 billion in capital investments in 2012. I interviewed Faraci later that day for an upcoming story in our MBQ magazine. Things I didn’t know until this week: IP’s North American mills get 73 percent of their energy from renewable sources and IP is the recycler of 12 percent of all paper that is recycled.

Egypt has raised the standard for violence at sporting events with a riot that killed 74 people. My friend Mohamad Elmeliegy, who came to Memphis from Cairo, told me he was saddened but not surprised by the bad news. In a column in September he said Egypt is new to democracy and “has been governed by the military since the pharaohs.”

Don’t put your sponsors in the position of having to talk about abortion. That’s the lesson of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure turnabout this week, according to a colleague in our marketing department who is familiar with the Memphis Race for the Cure in Germantown every year. Komen had said earlier this week it would cease to fund grants for breast cancer screening to Planned Parenthood under new rules to tighten eligibility. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen said in a statement on Friday signed by its board of directors and its founder Nancy Brinker.